


i've loved the stars too dearly

by proser132



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Because goddamn I cannot stop myself, Changelings, Fae & Fairies, High Fantasy, Human!Aster, Just lots and lots of bits and pieces, M/M, Magic is just all over the place and a big ol' mess it makes too, Magic-Users, No specific fairy tale, Rabbit!Aster, So take that as you will, The most innocent thing you will ever read from me, Witch!Tooth, Wizard!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-20 19:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6021913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proser132/pseuds/proser132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A curse, an herbalist, and the life he makes before it breaks.</p><p>Fairy tale AU with a bit more fairy than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AND NEVER WILL PROSER WRITE SOMETHING SHORT JFC
> 
> For the readers of PA who are patiently waiting for Toothiana and the Holy War, fear not. Typing by phone is slow, but soon you'll have chapters. Promise.
> 
> Anyway, have this big ol' mess. If it's not up to my usual standards vis a vis spelling errors (for instance, funny word replacement), just understand that autocorrect is a bitch, point out the error, and I'll correct it. Here, have somewhere around 20000 words of innocence.

Once, long ago, there was a man who lived in a prosperous village. He was clever and handsome, but he never seemed to notice the longing looks that followed him; lad and lass alike would have liked to call the Man their own, with his dark skin and shockingly grey hair, but he had no thoughts for romance. The Man had never been comfortable in his own skin, and so never even conceived of others' affections.

The only place the Man was content was the thickly forested hills that surrounded the village he lived in. He'd wander them 'til dark, or even later; winter or summer, spring or autumn, cold and wet or hot and mucky, it didn't matter to him. He knew every stream, every tree within an hour's walk of the village, and though some thought it strange (including his own family, who lived a village away and never visited), others just whispered that he must have a touch of the Fae to him, and that allowed for some strangeness.

The Man cared not one whit for their whispers, their suspicions. Whenever he was in the village, he was constantly distracted by the itch under his skin, the faintly niggling thought that he was not as he should have been. The only time he found rest from the strange ache inside him was when he was immersed in the woods, far from any human eye or thought save his own, and even then, he often found no relief.

One day, just as the last of Winter's snows melted at from the Man's beloved woods, the itch - the unbelonging - was deep into his bones, and more persistent than it had ever been. Seeking to escape it, the Man went into the woods; but the tamed forest, pathways beaten by human feet and brush trimmed back, was unsatisfying to him. He strode through the woods he'd known all his life, trees memorised like the faces of old friends, and past them, farther than he'd ever gone.

At last, he reached an expanse of forest that had never known a human hand, and it was here amongst the wild things that the Man's pain was eased. Now focussed on something outside his own bodily discomfort, he wandered through bramble and thicket as easily as if he'd been born to them.

Unknown to the Man, or indeed to anyone living, a Sorcerer dwelt within the dark, untouched wilderness. He dared not interfere with the ancient forest itself, but made his home in an iron and blacksteel tower, where his dark magic could roam free. This forest was meant for secret things, and so it kept him secret; but make no mistake, the Sorcerer did not respect the forest, and so when he felt the intrusion of a sentient creature, he sent out a true sight spell to bring him a vision of the newcomer.

True sight is both a wonderful and terrible thing, and though it shows truth, it does not guarantee the wisdom to understand what is shown. The Sorcerer looked upon the Man's soul, and so thought he knew every piece of him - his clever mind, his eye for natural beauty, his distaste for the people he knew, his bitterness towards his family's neglect, his slow to burn and slow to bank temper. What shone through most strongly, though, was his soul's mismatch to his body, and the deep peace the forest's wildness granted him.

Had the Sorcerer been a wiser man, he would have wondered at the cause of the mismatch; had he been a better man, he would have fallen in love, as had so many before him. His soul was a twisted, cruel thing, though, long ago warped by fear and loss and rotted by years of loneliness and rage. The Sorcerer could no more love another person than he could love himself. The peace found by the Man in this wilderness infuriated the Sorcerer, who knew no peace from his own self-loathing, and saw the ancient forest not for its untameable beauty but as a prison unworthy of him. The Sorcerer wished to visit misery in equal measure to his own on the unfortunate Man.

Magic, though, has a great many rules, and foremost among them is that curses cannot be cast upon the innocent. Enchantments may be placed, spells may be cast, charms and jinxes and hexes do not hinge on a person's innocence, but a curse is a thing born of malice, and magic has limitations. The innocent cease to be so for one of three reasons: committing a crime, being descended from someone who has harmed the caster, and harming the caster themselves. It was the Man's misfortune that (unknowingly though it was) he had crossed from the wilderness to the Sorcerer's domain, and the trespass would be his undoing - though perhaps too his salvation.

The Sorcerer gathered his power, shadows and black light swirling beneath his skin, and with a clap of dark lightning and jarring thunder, he appeared before the Man.

The Man, though startled, was unafraid, and dipped his head in a polite nod. 'Lo,' he said pleasantly enough.

His courage and politeness did nothing to soothe the Sorcerer's hatred. 'You trespass here,' the Sorcerer snapped.

The Man frowned, and cast a glance around. The wilderness looked much the same as it had before the Sorcerer had arrived. 'Sorry, I'll head off, then. Might be ye ought to put up signs, though. A fence, maybe.'

The Sorcerer grit his teeth. 'For the crime of trespass -' he began to intone.

'Oi,' the Man interrupted, alarmed. 'M'not sure ye could call it a crime, if ye didn't warn a bloke fair and square -'

The Sorcerer ignored him, gathering his magic once more. '- I curse you thus. By day, you will wear the form of an animal the shape of your soul, and by night, you will return to your human form. All who have known you to this day will forget you. Only when someone grows to love your true self will you be free.'

The Sorcerer was quite pleased with this curse, as it played on the nature he'd seen within the Man - a natural introvert, prone to solitude and loneliness. He'd never let anyone close enough to break the curse. And, remembering the temper, the Sorcerer felt confident the the animal form would be that of a fearsome bear or dreadful wolf, something guaranteed to drive away all who might otherwise try to save him.

The magic grew and grew, then descended in a great, inky wave; where it touched the Man's skin, it transformed into a beautiful green light, hiding him from view. The Sorcerer frowned. That wasn't quite right. He wondered if the magic would reject the trespass as crime enough, and braced himself for the backlash, if that was the case.

The light swelled then shrank, far smaller than the Sorcerer had envisioned, and when it cleared, on the ground crouched a large and luxuriously slate-grey rabbit.

'Are ye _serious_ ?' the Rabbit said, which wasn't quite right, either, as the Sorcerer certainly hadn't left in a proviso for the animal form to talk. 'Ye turned me into a _bunny_? What bug’s up yer date?!'

The Sorcerer sneered; the curse hadn't worked the way he'd wanted, but this would suffice. No one could take a talking rabbit seriously. 'Begone,' he commanded, 'before I decide to put you in my soup pot.' The Sorcerer swirled away in a cloud of dark dust, overall quite pleased with himself. The Rabbit coughed and sputtered, but it was no use - the Sorcerer was gone.

The Rabbit sat a dejected moment, huddled into himself. How on earth did he get himself into this one? He was cursed - cursed! - and was now alone in a largely unknown wilderness, with an angry Sorcerer who could change his mind at any moment and decide he would like a nice rabbit stew for his supper. Altogether, it was very depressing, and deserved a bit of a mope.

The Man - now the Rabbit - wasn't called clever for nothing, though, and he'd always preferred doing something to sitting around and bellyaching. So what if he was cursed? There was a way to break it, no matter how unlikely, and he'd be back in his body come nightfall. Not entirely unmanageable.

It took a few false starts, but the Rabbit quickly got the hang of his new body, and started for home. He wouldn't be able to stay - nor did he want to, as he'd only come to this village to escape his family and their perpetual distance - but it was late afternoon already, and he wasn't sure how long he should remain in the woods. After all, it wasn't just an angry Sorcerer who might fancy a juicy Rabbit for his dinner.

The sun set when the Rabbit was half an hour from the village, and with a soft green light, the Rabbit became a Man once again, fully clothed and unharmed. He entered the village and walked swiftly to his own house, thinking hard. There was little here he'd need; all he'd ever treasured here were the forests. The village and the house itself had only ever been an escape route from a family that cared for when he put coin in the family purse and precious little else, and whilst he had sketchbooks he'd cobbled together, wood panels painted with brightly flowering landscapes, they were all too unwieldy to travel with. He wasn't sure he'd want to keep them, anyway. He packed a bag with clothes and every coin he'd ever saved, and slung it over his back.

'What do ye think ye're doing?' demanded a voice behind him, and the Man swore in his head - he'd forgotten that the curse made everyone forget him!

He turned to the village guard - an older man he'd known for years, now - and smiled. 'Packing things up for a mate. The bloke who lives here?'

'No one lives here,' the guard began,  but then he blinked, confused by all of the obvious signs of habitation around him. The Man thought that something of the Guard's memory must have returned, and was bewildering him; clearly, the Sorcerer wasn't a very good one, if his curses were so bodgy.

'Not anymore,' the Man agreed. 'He's moving tonight.' Suddenly inspired, the Man tried to smile like a young man in love, but having never been in love before, he wasn't sure he succeeded. 'He and I - well, I've been trying to convince him to run away with me for months, not going to let a forgotten handkerchief keep him now.'

It felt absurd - he'd known this guard since he'd moved to this village, and here he was, telling the bloke he was running off with himself!

The Guard nodded understandingly, which just elevated the atmosphere of absurdity. 'He's a good catch, ye're a lucky man,' he added, and the Man tried to not laugh hysterically. 'Best of luck to ye both. But, sorry. I didn't catch yer name, mate.'

The Man opened his mouth and was startled by what came out: 'Me friends call me Bunny.'

Friends? Bunny? He wasn't sure which was the worse joke, but the Guard just nodded again. 'Is that yer full name?'

'Er, no,' the Man said. He'd need a new name, anyway - and his old one, Evan, had fit him as well as his body did. 'I'm Bunny... mund.'

'Bunnymund?'

'E. Aster Bunnymund,' the Man said on a whim. 'Don't ask what the E stands for, it's rotten.'

The Guard laughed. 'Well, tell yer man we'll miss him, even if he weren't ever as sociable as you.'

The Man jerked, surprised, but the Guard had left.

He left, too, suddenly very ready to be as fast away as he could get. It was full dark at last, and he left the lights of the village behind, following the road.

He'd head north, he decided. So far north no one had ever met a southerner - the kingdom was more than large enough for that - and he'd be as reclusive as he liked. He'd find some way to support himself. He'd gotten by well enough by doing odd jobs for neighbours when he was needed (and could stand their presence), surely he could do the same there. He'd find a way to learn more about magic, and maybe break the curse himself. He could do this.

He tried on the name he'd given himself aloud. 'E. Aster Bunnymund,' he murmured. 'Me friends call me Bunny.'

He snorted at the joke, and kept walking.

 

The Man - the Rabbit, he found himself thinking more and more often, even back in his own shape - kept travelling, keeping on the road at night and hiding by day. Being a rabbit actually came in handy; before dawn, he'd climb into a tree and tuck his bag safely away, then once he'd changed (making sure to sit on a large branch beforehand), he'd clamber into his bag and doze the day away, safe from predators. When he ate as the Rabbit, he felt as full as if he'd eaten as the Man, which neatly solved his conundrum of how to feed himself while trying to save all of his money for when he found a place to settle in. He covered more ground by night, and rarely spent more than an hour inside village or town, avoiding the cities entirely.

All in all, the curse felt less curse-like and more inconvenient, the Rabbit thought, annoyed and chilly in the early dawn light. Midsummer was just past, but here, within cooee of the kingdom's northernmost border, it felt like autumn already. The southern Rabbit acknowledged that he might possibly be biased, having lived all his life in the hot, arid, and coastal south, and was glad (not for the first time) for his thick fur coat. Too bad it was gone come nightfall.

He waited impatiently for dusk, twitching his whiskers incessantly; this was the last town before the kingdom dissolved into untamed wilderness, and was fairly sizeable, from what he could tell. Having a large town was important, unless he wanted his secret discovered within the month, and he thought that this would be a nice enough place to settle.

Once he'd returned to his human shape, the Rabbit entered the town with a quick step, careful to go as unnoticed as he possibly could. No one seemed interested in the stranger, bustling this way and that on their own errands, and he quickly found the leader of the town in a fantastical house built to look like a tree. He thought it was built to look like a tree. He hoped.

The man, ancient looking but cheerful and with a long white beard that reached his knees, looked delighted when the Rabbit explained that he was hoping to settle down. 'There's no home available in the town itself,' he said, northern accent crisp and sharp, 'but if you don't mind a walk, there's an old cottage not far in the woods. None's lived there in more than ten years, so it will need a bit of work, but you seem the hardy type.' The Old Man smiled. 'What's your profession? Do you hunt?'

'Oh, no,' the Rabbit said, stomach a little queasy at the thought. Now that he spent half his time as a prey animal, meat had lost what little appeal it had to him. 'I - garden, mostly. Bake sweets, when I've the supplies. Paint, some.'

'Ah, a chef? Or an artist? Bah, it's not my business. Twenty of your shiny southern coins ought to be enough.'

The Rabbit paid, surprised at how cheap it was (he'd expected twice that, even for a cottage in disrepair), and left to find his new home, following the disused and narrow path the Old Man had directed him towards, back near the south entrance to the town. The forest, for all its distance from the southern trees the Rabbit had known and loved, was just as friendly to him. The path wound through the trunks at will, which was a mite inefficient but respected the great roots sprawling around, and the trees were tall, old things keeping watch over the ground below. The shrubbery at their bases was varied and thick, slowly encroaching on the path. He thought about clearing it some, but decided that was a waste of the forest’s good efforts.

When he arrived and saw the cottage, he sighed; the cottage, if it merited the lofty title, was missing half its front wall, had a large hole in the roof, and looked very much like it has been abandoned for the ten years the Old Man had described.

'A bit of work,' the Rabbit grumbled, setting his pack down on the crumbling garden wall. 'A bit. Bulldust.'

...Still. The structure itself looked sound (to his admittedly amateurish eye), and it had a charming assymetry that appealed to the same part of him that had been drawn out into the wilderness some months past. The garden space was overgrown and unruly, but that appealed even more, and though it would take a great deal of work, for the first time in his life the Rabbit thought he could see himself growing old somewhere.

He was used to being awake and working in the dark by now, and so he sighed, and got to work.

Three nights later, he'd done as much as he could without tools or materials, and knew he'd have to come up with a way to obtain those things before he could continue. The problem was, of course, that he could only do so once the sun fell, and so he set off the following evening, hoping he'd find at least someone willing to speak to him - summer meant a late sunset, so he’d be unsurprised to find all the shops closed. ‘Bloody inconvenient…’ he muttered as he made his way back, more annoyed with the curse than truly angry, as ever.

The town was as busy as if it was noon, and the Rabbit realised what he'd missed when first he came in. He'd been so focussed on finding the mayor (and so confused by the Old Man’s home) that he'd completely ignored the obvious market that occupied the town square.

He had only just entered the market, a little stunned, when the Old Man descended on him, looking so chuffed to see him that the Rabbit's lingering annoyance over the state of the cottage was soothed.

'Bunny!' the Old Man greeted with a wide smile, a young girl in tow and peeking out from behind him. 'How are you settling in?'

'Very well, thank ye,' the Rabbit replied. He looked around once more. 'There a special occasion? Thought Midsummer was a week past.'

'Pah, this?' The Old Man scoffed. 'It's very slow tonight.'

The Rabbit eyed the bustling market doubtfully. 'Is this a regular thing, then?'

'The Night Market. Like the name implies, it's nightly - well, weekly in the winter. Nightly in the summer when Their Majesties are in town. The royal family summers here, you know!'

The Rabbit cared little one way or the other for royalty, as they had little effect on him personally outside taxes, but the Old Man looked proud of the fact, so the Rabbit made appropriately impressed noises.

'Will you take a stall in the Night Market?' the Old Man asked. 'You said you bake? Garden?'

'Going to be a while before I can settle in and do either of those regularly,' the Rabbit said with a shrug, but it was a thought. It would be a decent way to care for himself, at least, and keep busy, and most importantly, it would provide a decent excuse for never being around during the day. 'I was hoping to find some building tools and materials tonight, and maybe some late-blooming seeds that won't mind being a bit younger than their mates.'

'Ah, Williams and Sons can take care of your needs there,' the Old Man said with a nod, 'but if you're looking for an herbalist or something of that sort, we don't have one anymore.'

'She died last month,' the young girl piped up unexpectedly. 'No apprentices, either.' The Girl gave the Rabbit a shy smile. 'Sort of reckless, really.'

The Rabbit smiled back; he'd always preferred anklebiters. Never did get on his nerves like their oldies did. 'A shame, that,' he said sincerely, and crouched to be on her level. After a moment, she came out from behind the Old Man a bit more, and for a disorienting second, the Rabbit missed his rabbit nose, the way his long ears would have crooked forward invitingly. 'Was she a friend of yers?' he guessed, and the Girl nodded.

'She was old, though,' she said with a flash of grief on her face that was heavier than her age should ever have to bear. This wasn't the first death she'd lived through.

'Still hurts, I reckon,' the Rabbit replied, and the Girl gifted him with another shy smile.

'Do you know much about herbs?' the Old Man asked, giving the Rabbit a grateful look.

'A fair bit,' the Rabbit admitted, thinking of the many long hours he'd spent in his southern forests. 'Not this far north, though. I'm going to need to get reacquainted.'

'Well, when you are, I imagine there'd be a great deal of work for a new herbalist around here.'

'If I'm any good,' the Rabbit shrugged, uncomfortable. He had no experience healing people. He just knew the plants, and what they did, and a few home remedies from down south. Surely there needed to be more to it than that?

'Everyone starts somewhere, Bunny,' the Old Man said wisely. 'Give it thought.'

'I will, sir.' The Rabbit said politely.

'It's Ombric, please. You're a neighbour, now!'

'And I'm Katherine!' the Girl said, much braver than she'd been before. 'Nice to meet you, Bunny!'

'Ye as well,' the Rabbit returned, surprised but pleased.

He ordered what he needed from Williams and Sons (all of them, as far as he could tell, were named William, and so had to be distinguished in other ways. Old William was the father, Tall William was the eldest, and William the Absolute Youngest was - well, precisely that. He wasn't quite sure on the rest.) With a promise that it would be delivered tomorrow afternoon, and a warning from himself to them that he would not be present - and, in a sense, he would not - he left their spacious stall and bought himself a hot, sweet pasty from the baker two stalls over.

He sat on the edge of the fountain in the centre of the market, largely ignored by the rest of the townsfolk save the occasional curious glance, and watched the bustle. He hadn't expected such a perfect opportunity to land in his lap. If he did open a stall here (whether to sell vegetables or sweets or even herbs and remedies, the way the Old Man had suggested), then he even had a ready-made excuse for never being seen during the day. No one would suspect he was anything other than what he said he was. He could do more than hide, the way he'd been to fear he always would; he could _live_ , perhaps better than he ever had.

The Rabbit took a bite of the pasty (decent, but he could do better), and wished for his whiskers, so he could twitch them contentedly.

 

Life settled quickly after that. During the day, when he wasn't sleeping, he gardened - his little paws and powerful hind legs were fantastic tools for this kind of work, and his presence deterred other, true rabbits. He'd curl up on his window sills and nap in the morning sunlight, and munch on sweet grasses and roots, and venture into the woods for seeds and cuttings. Whether it was his own skill or some bizarre side effect of the curse (he was near certain he shouldn't be able to _talk_ in his rabbit form, which suggested the curse wasn't working precisely the way it had been intended), plants gravitated to him and flourished under his touch in a way their southern cousins never had. In the evenings, after sundown and the synonymous transformation, he'd pull his little cart down into town, where he would open his stall; he had (nervously) taken the Old Man's suggestion, and picked up where the old herbalist had left off. To his surprise, it came to him easy as breathing. The worst thing he faced was the occasional flu outbreak or farming injury, and for the most part found himself supplying the local magic users. The Old Man was a highly skilled wizard, apparently having trained the King himself in the King's youth, and the local Witch - a pleasant woman with great bird wings and a wide smile, a far cry from the suspicious and paranoid witches the Rabbit had met in the south - didn't enjoy gathering her own potions ingredients. They were happy to trade him books on magic for the rarer, harder-to-obtain ingredients, and the Rabbit found the theory desperately interesting, even aside from his personal investment in the subject.

The Rabbit supposed that some parts of his life would seem lonely to some: he lived alone in the woods, after all, and never had visitors. He'd even offhandedly mentioned his 'pet rabbit' to the Old Man, knowing he was both the town mayor and the town gossip, just in case someone did come, so that he wouldn't be chased from his own garden. But to the Rabbit, it was maybe the least lonely he'd ever felt.

He liked these northern folk much better than any he'd ever met south of the capitol, including his own family. He'd never felt so comfortable in one place, and…

Well, despite his contentedness, there was still the discomfort that was his own body. In some ways, it had diminished: now that he spent half his time in a new body altogether, it was no longer the all-consuming distraction it had been before. In others, however, it had expanded. Now, he knew what the discomfort stemmed from.

When he wore the rabbit form, he of course missed being human. Fingers were handy things, as were thumbs, and eyesight (he'd never known rabbits were farsighted until he's been forced into the shape of one.) His height, while large for a rabbit, was still far too short for his own taste, and there was something to be said for not being a prey animal. He found he rather disliked birds these days; if the songbirds weren't trying to nick his seeds, the predators were trying to nick _him_. Finally, he just bought a ward against the birds who tried to eat rabbits from the Witch, who was pleased by the challenge of it all that she didn't even charge him.

But, so much worse than missing thumbs or height or any of it, was what he missed as a human. He missed his long ears and the excellent hearing they provided, he missed his nose and greater sense of scent, he missed his whiskers and the ability to jump far distances and even the way his fur would warm in the sun or ruffle in the breeze.

Still, it was better than it had been. The summer became the brightest (and briefest) autumn the Rabbit had ever seen, then the coldest winter, then the wettest spring, and then summer again. Seemed the north did nothing by halves. The cottage became his home in a way not even the southern forests had managed. He gardened and baked sweets and painted when he could spare the time, like he'd told the Old Man, and the name 'Bunny' became more familiar than his birth name ever had. A year passed. Two.

In his far off stronghold, the Sorcerer scryed the Rabbit, and was furious.

How dare the Rabbit find happiness even when cursed!, he seethed. The audacity! The _temerity_!

He didn't dare interfere - he knew now he'd been skirting a thin line with his curse in the first place, and the idea of the violent backlash stayed his hand. Thus the Sorcerer was reduced to watching and despising the Rabbit from afar. His only consolation was that the Rabbit never grew particularly close to any of the townsfolk, not even the Old Man, the Girl, or the Witch, each of whom were singularly unsuitable to break the curse for one reason or another, anyway.

It was the sixth year after the Rabbit's curse was laid before anything changed.

In those six years, the Rabbit had met just about every person who lived in the town, but despite the Old Man's claim that the royal family summered there, he'd never once met any of them. This wasn't unusual, however. Many in the town had never met them personally, only seen the King and his grandchildren, the Prince and Princess, from afar. From what the Rabbit could tell, they kept to their summer palace a bit north of the town, which struck him as missing the point - why travel somewhere and then never leave the house? - but he was hardly someone with the right to judge them on that. A few years before he'd come north, the King had lost his only son, the Crown Prince, and his daughter-in-law to an awful accident that even the then-detached Rabbit had heard rumour of. Some kind of boat capsizing. The King, already long-widowed, had been left with the sole care of his now orphaned grandchildren. A sad tale, to be certain, but that's all it was to the Rabbit. He'd never even seen the royal family in person, and so had only a vague sympathy for them, if he bothered to think on them at all. Mostly, he figured the grief would account for the reclusivity, and that, as already mentioned, he was the last person to have grounds to judge them on that.

It was early summer, now. Spring had melted into longer days, and Midsummer was within reach. The Rabbit was taking a well-deserved nap atop the flat wall of his garden, his favourite sunning spot now that he didn't have those bloody birds trying to eat him.

He was pleasantly dozing, drifting in and out of consciousness and lazy dreams, when the voice came; he assumed it to be part of his dream.

'Wow,' the voice said, soft and reverent. 'Look at this place.'

It was a nice voice, smooth, a faint hint of perpetual wry laughter buried in it. Male - too deep for most else - and warm, like firelight after a snowstorm. A good-dream voice.

'And looks like Katherine wasn't kidding,' the voice continued. 'A pet rabbit? Really?'

That sounded less dreamlike than it should, and the Rabbit began to drag himself to wakefulness.

'Aren't you a cute thing,' the voice cooed, and the Rabbit felt a hand land on his ears, smoothing over them.

'Oi, watch it!' he snapped, skittering backwards, then froze.

A young man stared at him, hand still outstretched. The Rabbit stared back; he'd heard of people whose hair had gone white overnight, but he'd never met one so young. Hair that white couldn't be entirely natural (he ignored the fleeting thought that his own hair had been grey since birth). Blue eyes, wide with surprise, blinked.

'Uh,' the Young Man said, 'did you just talk?'

The Rabbit remembered he ought to be panicking, and laid his ears flat, swearing in his head. 'I'd, er, make a rabbit noise here,' he said cautiously after a long minute, 'but m'afraid I don't know how.'

The Young Man flinched. 'You did it again!'

Well, this was going swimmingly. 'Yes, I did,' the Rabbit sighed. 'Wasn't supposed to.'

'What? Why?' the Young Man asked, and awkwardly dropped his hand at last. 'I mean, if I was a talking rabbit, I'm pretty sure you couldn't get me to shut up.'

The Rabbit snorted. 'Bet ye a copper ye'd end up in a sideshow in an hour.'

The Young Man made a face. 'Okay, fair.' He shuffled a bit. 'Um. Sorry about - you know. Petting you. In your sleep.'

'S'alright,' the Rabbit said uncomfortably.

'I mean, I guess I never thought a rabbit would _mind_ ,' the Young Man babbled, 'but, uh, clearly you do, so -'

'I said it's fine,' the Rabbit said, a bit exasperated.

Awkward silence reigned.

'So...' the Young Man started slowly, 'I take it you don't want me to tell anyone you can...?'

'I'd be much obliged,' the Rabbit replied, relieved. 'Strewth, can ye imagine what that'd be like? Never have another moment's peace.'

The Young Man nodded, then bit his lip. 'Hey, where's your master? I wanted to talk to him.'

It took the Rabbit longer than it should have to realise the bloke was talking about _him_. 'Oh, er,' the Rabbit stumbled, 'he's, er - out. Out gathering - things. Ye know.'

The Young Man slumped. 'When will he be back?' he asked.

'Not until Night Market,' the Rabbit replied, shuffling a bit; this was why he'd not wanted anyone to know he could talk as a rabbit. It was one thing to lie when there was only _one_ person to lie. He didn't want to have to try and keep track of what he'd said in what shape. Too easy to make a mistake, and then - well, everyone would know. He couldn't bear that. 'He's got a stall there, if ye -'

'No, I can't go there!' the Young Man said, a touch frantic. 'Is there any way I can hang out here until he comes back - I promise not to cause trouble. Too much trouble, anyway.'

Oh, no. No, no, no. If he stayed, then he'd see - the Rabbit couldn't let that happen.

'Why can't ye go to the Night Market?' the Rabbit asked to buy himself time.

The Young Man laughed, a dry, unhappy sound. 'Are you kidding? Me? There'd be a riot.'

The Rabbit's eyes narrowed, ears flicking forward. 'Why?'

With a jerk, the Young Man took a step back. 'Wait - you don't -?' His voice was full of wonder, and his eyes wide once more. 'You don't know who I am?'

'Should I?' The Rabbit asked, twitching his whiskers. 'Ye some kind of outlaw?'

The Young Man laughed again, and this sound was much happier than the last. 'No way,' he chuckled, and then a grin split his face. 'Hey, I'll make you a deal.'

'What kind of deal?' the Rabbit asked suspiciously.

'I don't tell anyone you can talk -'  
    'Oi! Ye already promised not -'

'And in return,' the Young Man continued over the Rabbit's squawking, 'You don't try to find out who I am.'

The Rabbit thought this over, tapping his teeth together in annoyance. 'Fine,' he said grudgingly. 'Not that I cared all that much in the first place, mind ye.'

The Young Man laughed and relaxed, body going loose all at once. 'Awesome. Just how I like it.'

'Why are ye looking for me - master?' The Rabbit said, and was blessedly grateful for his accent (not for the first time since coming north).

The Young Man's face grew drawn. 'I have a little sister,' he said. 'She's sick - really sick. We've - I've brought every healer, every doctor I can find, but no one knows what's wrong. I've heard good stuff about your master from Ombric, and I thought, maybe...'

The Rabbit shuffled. 'Well,' he hedged, 'it's not just me master who knows these plants. What's wrong with the anklebiter?'

The relief that spread across the Young Man's face was almost heartbreaking. 'Really? You'd do that?'

'I'm not coming with ye, and no promises that I'll have any idea, either. I'm a rabbit, after all.'

'It's worth a shot,' the Young Man said. He listed off a pretty comprehensive litany of symptoms, the sure sign of someone who'd spent too long at a loved one's bedside, and the Rabbit listened attentively. When he mentioned fever dreams, and a blue tinge to her skin,  the Rabbit clicked his teeth together decisively.

'Sounds like Blue Mountain Fever, mate,' he said, rising from his seat and stretching, paws extended forward. 'Guess it's not too common up here. Know it from a couple of outbreaks down south - gets its name from the Blue Mountain Ridge. How much do ye know about magic?'

The Young Man frowned. 'Some,' he said cautiously.

'More'n most, then,' the Rabbit said kindly. 'All theory, meself. Blue Mountain Fever is sort of like a magical flu - it happens when someone's magical centre gets unaligned with their mind.'

'She doesn't use magic,' the Young Man frowned harder. 'She's not allowed yet - she's too young.'

'Everyone's got magic, whether or not they're allowed to use it,' the Rabbit replied. 'When it shows up in tin lids, typically they need some kind of focus item or lessons to realign their centre. Might be she needs to start them early. Unfortunately, it's a bit late for that to fix the whole problem.'

'Too late?' the Young Man asked, looking panicked.

'It's started making her sick, she needs to be treated like it,' the Rabbit said gently. 'Once the fever dreams start, she needs to drink -'

'So, wait - can you fix this or not?'

The Rabbit paused; the Young Man looked at him with such hope, it hurt his heart. 'Fair dinkum, I can,' he said with a nod. 'Ye'll need a tea out of these herbs -' he leapt down onto the garden side of the wall, then paused again. 'Er, come on in,' he said, nervous now.

'Won't your master be mad?' the Young Man asked, peering over the wall.

The Rabbit couldn't help his chuckle. 'He's more me roommate than me master, mate,' he said. 'Sides, can't do the cuttings meself. Need yer fingers.'

'Okay,' the Young Man replied, and vaulted over the wall, landing in a neat crouch beside the Rabbit, light as air.

'There's a gate just over there,' the Rabbit said calmly, gesturing with his right ear, and hoping his hammering heart wasn't audible. Bloody oath, that had frightened him.

'This way was faster,' the Young Man said back, all innocence before grinning impishly. 'And more fun. Don't you just do things for fun, sometimes?'

'Not really,' the Rabbit answered curtly, pretending he didn't want to smile. 'M'pretty busy.'

'I can see it,' the Young Man nodded seriously. 'Napping takes up a lot of time, and gosh, where would the good people of Santoff Claussen be if -'

'Rack off,' the Rabbit snorted. 'Here's the first one, ye dero. Ye only want the leaves with three points, else they're too big to do any good. Ye'll need a good handful, but be careful not to crush 'em...'

After a few false starts, the Young Man figured out how to remove the leaves without crushing them, and the Rabbit twitched his ears approvingly. 'Good,' he said gruffly. 'Next, ye'll want ten or so petals off this flower over here...'

The Rabbit led the Young Man here and there through his garden, directing him towards the plants and how to handle them. To his surprise, the Young Man peppered him with questions, all of them good questions, and more than once he made the Rabbit laugh aloud with a clever quip. It was strange.

'So how do I make a tea from these?' the Young Man asked, placing some pieces of willow bark in the basket the Rabbit had told him to use for the ingredients. 'I thought tea was dried.'

'Call it a broth, if it helps ye any,' the Rabbit said, rolling his eyes. 'Ye'll crush the leaves together with a spoon - nothing metal - then add in the other things.  Grind the willow bark until it's in bits no bigger than yer little nail, add that, then steep in boiling water for fifteen minutes. It should make two gallons, and ye'll want to give her a cup of the strained tea -'

'Broth.'

'- ugh, fine - give her a cup once an hour 'til it's all gone, even if her fever breaks. It'll be bitter, so if ye can get beet sugar or honey, it won't hurt it none.'

'Thank you so much,' the Young Man said, crouching once more to be closer to eye level. 'Seriously, you've saved her life. I'd hug you if you wouldn't bite my arm off.'

'Don't ye dare,' the Rabbit warned, scuttling backwards even as his whiskers twitched in amusement. 'Or it won't be yer arm off.'

'What's your name?'

The Rabbit blinked. 'I, er, don't have one,' he admitted apologetically. He hadn't ever thought he'd need one as a rabbit. 'Just go by Rabbit, usually. Prefer it that way, if ye don't mind.'

The Young Man nodded. 'Then thank you, Rabbit,' he said. 'How much do I owe you?'

The Rabbit reared back. 'I'm not going to charge ye for medicine yer sister _needs_ ,' he exclaimed, aghast. 'She's a sick tot, I'm not - she needs it, I'm not going to make ye pay for it.'

The Young Man stared at him. The Rabbit, a bit offended, glared back.

'Then thank you,' the Young Man said, sounding - the Rabbit didn't know what, only that it made his fur prickle. 'Can - can I come back?'

The Rabbit blinked. 'What, if it doesn't work? Course ye can.'

The Young Man shook his head. 'Even if it does - and if you're half as good as everyone says your master is, then it will.'

The Rabbit's fur prickled again. 'Why, then?' he asked bewildered. 'Does anyone else have it? It can get contagious among other non-magic -'

'Doesn't anybody just visit you?' the Young Man returned.

The Rabbit winced. 'Er, not as such,' he admitted. It sounded terrible, when put like that. 'No one knows I talk, ye see. And we're private folk.'

The Young Man gave him a look that left him unnerved. 'Don't tell me you're each others' only friend,' he said lightly, but the sentence was neither light nor a sentence at all.

To be honest, the only thing that sounded more pathetically than that was the truth - that the Rabbit lived alone, and never had a visitor. It had never seemed lonely until that moment, though.

'He sees people at the Market, don't he?' the Rabbit said, thrown by the effort of talking about himself in the third person. 'It's not like ye think.'

'And you don't get lonely?'

Not until today, he hadn't. 'Not really,' the Rabbit lied.

The Young Man scowled. 'Just so you know,' he said flatly, 'your left ear goes crazy when you're lying.'

Almost like he'd taken flight, the Young Man vaulted over the garden wall again, before the Rabbit could protest.

'Hey, wait -'

The Rabbit scrambled up the wall to see the Young Man waiting on the other side, still looking annoyed - and, somehow worse, disappointed. The Rabbit swallowed, confused and nervous, exasperated and worried all at once.

'Ye didn't even tell me yer name,' he said weakly.

The Young Man smiled, a startling change from his expression just before. 'You can call me Jack,' he replied, and shook the basket gently, mindful of its precious contents. 'And I'm coming back whether you want me to or not. This is a loan, after all.'

Then he was running down the path to the town, fleet and pale, so fast the Rabbit thought he might be flying.

The Rabbit squinted up at the sun, judged he had another few hours before sunset, and hopped into the house to start sorting the evening's wares. All hope of a nice afternoon nap was gone; he was too shook up to sleep.

 

One day passed, then two, then three. The Rabbit was unsettled, now - somebody knew one of his secrets. How long until all of them came out - how long until he was run out of town or worse?

And there was a part of him that he tried to ignore, the part of him that worried for the Young Man and the sister he so clearly loved to pieces. Had the tea worked the way it was supposed to? Was the tot well?

The Rabbit was full of questions, and no way to ask them - he'd made a promise, too, and so couldn't ask any of his regulars if they knew about a young bloke with white hair. Had he not been so wrapped up in his own head, he would have noticed the worried looks he got from the Witch, the Old Man, and the Girl, but he was too distracted.

The seventh day passed slowly, the Rabbit's nervousness eating away at the pit in his stomach until it was wide and deep. It wouldn't have taken a week to administer the tea. Maybe the bloke had forgotten about the talking Rabbit already - maybe the curse had made him forget. It had never happened yet in the Rabbit's years here, and he'd thought it had only affected those who'd known him before, but then no one had found out his rabbit form could speak, either.

The Rabbit had worked himself into a fine mope, and it was with a heavy heart that he pulled his little cart down the path to the town.

'Oh, um -'

The Rabbit's head snapped up. Before him stood the Young Man, draped in a too-heavy cloak, roughly woven but a rich blue. He pushed the hood back, and the white hair was just as startling in the low light of evening as it had been in full sun.

'Lo,' the Rabbit managed after a second. 'Can I help ye?'

'I, uh,' the Young Man stumbled over his words. The Rabbit didn't remember him so tongue-tied before. He looked at a loss for words.

'Are ye looking for Rabbit?' the Rabbit asked, fumbling a bit himself; he had a feeling he'd never get used to talking about himself like this.

The Young Man tensed. 'He, uh, told you about me?'

The Rabbit held up a hand. 'I've no idea who ye are, either,' he said, suspecting why the Young Man was reacting like this.

At his words, the Young Man relaxed; right on the ticket, then. 'Oh. Good.'

'How's yer sister?' the Rabbit asked, unable to help himself.

The smile the Young Man gave then was dazzling. 'She's perfectly fine, raising hell about being on bedrest like every other eleven year-old.' He pulled something out from under his cloak, and the Rabbit realised it was the basket. 'I was coming to bring this back.'

'I'll take it,' the Rabbit said, holding out his hand. To his surprise, the Young Man tightened his hold on it.

'Uh, I'd like to bring it back myself, if that's okay?' he asked, an embarrassed look on his face. 'Only, I'm pretty sure Rabbit would just kick me out if I didn't show up with an excuse.'

The Rabbit snorted a bit, surprising both the Young Man and himself. 'Reckon he would, at that,' the Rabbit agreed. 'Stop by tomorrow, then.'

'He's not there now?'

'Errands,' the Rabbit said evasively. 'He'll be back tomorrow.'

The Young Man nodded. 'Okay, I will. Um - what's your name?'

'Bunny,' the Rabbit answered, and the Young Man laughed.

'Bunny and Rabbit, huh?' he said, grinning. 'What, is Rabbit your enchanted brother, or something?'

'What?' the Rabbit said, heart hammering.

'I'm kidding,' the Young Man said, then added slyly, 'unless he really _is_ -'

'He's not me enchanted brother,' the Rabbit said hastily.

'Then who is he?'

'Why do ye care?' the Rabbit said roughly, unnerved.

'He's my friend, duh.'

'...Does _he_ know that?' the Rabbit asked. He was so stunned, he couldn't move if he'd wanted.

The Young Man laughed. 'Would I need a basket as an excuse to go see him if he did?' he asked cheekily. 'Don't tell him I'm coming - I want to surprise him a little.'

 _Too late_ , the Rabbit thought to himself. 'Sure,' he said instead, and smiled a little weakly. 'I'll keep mum.'

The Young Man beamed back, and inexplicably, the Rabbit felt his cheeks darken in a blush.

'I've got to get to Market,' he said abruptly, voice rough, and ducked his head so that he wasn't looking at that brilliant smile head on. 'Sorry, I -'

'Oh, whoops, I'm keeping you, aren't I?' the Young Man asked, going more than a little red himself, though what _he_ had to blush about, the Rabbit had no idea. _He_ wasn't making a fool of himself. 'Here, sorry -'

They awkwardly edged around one another, swapping places on the narrow path. 'Aren't ye heading back to the town?' the Rabbit asked.

'Nah, I'd rather go for a walk,' the Young Man said.

The Rabbit squinted at him. 'He's really not there,' he guessed shrewdly, and was rewarded with a wince. Something went warm in his chest, and he didn't know what it was.

'That obvious, huh?' The Young Man ruffled his already messy white hair. 'Well, the thing about the walk was true, mostly.'

The Rabbit chuckled.

'Are you sure you two aren't brothers?' the Young Man asked. 'You sound a lot alike.'

The Rabbit looked away. 'Trust me, we aren't related. He's just a rabbit.'

'I'm not sure I believe the last one, but okay,' the Young Man shrugged. 'You got your secrets, I got mine.' He smiled again, and the Rabbit was glad he was already looking away. 'Will you be around tomorrow?'

'I'm busy during the day,' the Rabbit said, shuffling from foot to foot. 'M'almost never home.'

'Too bad,' the Young Man replied, sounding like he meant it. 'Well, it was nice to meet you, Bunny.'

'Ye, too,' the Rabbit said, and watched for a long moment as the Young Man walked away, hair almost silver in the twilight. Then the Rabbit remembered himself and, swearing under his breath, began to pull his cart again.

Night Market dragged, the way it had all week, but now the pit of anxiety in the Rabbit's stomach was so wide, it could only be called a chasm. On the one hand, the Young Man was fine, and so was his sister; that was a load off the Rabbit's mind, who'd imagined increasingly dire circumstances as the week passed.

On the other, the Young Man had called him a friend. A friend! Him! He'd never really had one before, and couldn't help but wonder if one conversation and a remedy was all it took to gain one. The Young Man's smile was still in his head, and twice he almost gave a customer the wrong herb.

When he arrived at his little cottage long after midnight and tried to sleep, he tossed and turned and dreamt of - oh, all sorts of terrible things, his anxiety laying heavy as lead against his spine and sharp as copper on his tongue.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Dawn came, and with it, the green light of his change; the Rabbit, now small and furry once more, gave up sleep as a bad job and hopped into the garden.

Determined to lose himself in the work of gardening, hours passed without the Rabbit's notice. It was blissfully quiet, familiar, until halfway through the morning.

'Hiya, Cottontail!'

'Crikey!' the Rabbit shrieked, toppling over himself as he leapt a foot in the air. He spun around to find the Young Man leaning on the garden wall, grinning madly and dangling the basket from one finger. 'Bloody oath, warn a bloke!' he snapped, heart beating hard from the shock and that smile both.

'That's what the hello was for,' the Young Man laughed, and jiggled the basket. 'Got something for you.'

'Took ye long enough,' the Rabbit huffed. 'Is yer sister better?'

'Loads, thanks for asking,' the Young Man answered, and like before leapt over the wall. 'Took me so long because I had to convince them I'd actually found the answer myself, so they wouldn't come after you. Sorry for taking the credit.'

'She's apples,' the Rabbit said, deeply grateful. Then he gave the Young Man a look. 'Them?'

'Ah ah,' the Young Man said, wagging a finger. 'Too much information, bucko, can't tell you that.'

'Ugh, fine,' the Rabbit sighed. He had a terrible feeling that the _don't try to find out who I am_ edict was going to get very restrictive very fast. 'Well, ye brought me basket back. Need anything else?'

The Young Man winced, hid it with a laugh; the Rabbit remembered what he'd said the night before, about needing an excuse, and immediately felt guilty.

'Not really,' the Young Man said. 'I - uh, sorry. I guess I'll get out of your hair, then.'

He turned to go, and the Rabbit, furious with himself, yelped 'Wait!'

The Young Man froze, and though the Rabbit could only see the bloke's profile, it was impossible to miss the expression of hope.

'Ye don't _have_ to go,' he stammered, and coughed when the Young Man turned back. 'M'just not sure why ye'd want to stay, is all. Not much to do around here.'

The Young Man smiled. The Rabbit's fur prickled.

'Talk to you, duh,' he said. 'You're interesting.'

'What?'

'Come on, talking rabbit with a theoretical knowledge of magic and a really practical knowledge of herbs and healing? You're a _mystery_ , Cottontail,' the Young Man said, crouching down. 'I love mysteries. Also, if I befriend you, I might get to pet you someday.'

The Rabbit shuffled, mortified. 'Buckley's on the last one, mate,' he said slowly. 'But if ye want to talk, reckon that wouldn't be the worst thing.'

'What a vote of confidence!' the Young Man laughed, but it was miles from the forced laughter of before. 'Can I ask you questions about the whole rabbit thing?'

'Definitely not.'

'Not even one? You can lie, I don't care.'

Well, that was a neat way out. 'One, and ye don't get to ask where I'm from,' the Rabbit warned.

'You're from the south, Cottontail,' the Young Man teased. 'Your accent's even stronger than your master's - er, friend's.'

'Master's good as any,' the Rabbit said with a dismissive flick of his ears. 'Go on, get it out of the way.'

'Are you really just a rabbit, or were you something else first?'

The Rabbit blinked. 'What, ye know a lot of rabbits who can talk naturally, then?' he returned. 'Course I was something else first.'

'Were you human?'

'That's another question, mate,' the Rabbit said with a confused frown. 'And what else would I be, ye gumby? A fish?'

The Young Man laughed delightedly, sitting hard in the grass, nearly squashing the basket. 'You're a riot,' he said, smiling warmly. 'There's other things to be, you know.'

'Like what?' the Rabbit asked, mystified.

The Young Man tapped his chin thoughtfully, mock-serious. 'Well, I know this guy who's a rabbit...'

The Rabbit ducked his head, laughing, and the Young Man looked pleased. 'Hey, I've got an idea. Are you busy around here?'

'Not really,' the Rabbit admitted, curiosity getting the better of him.

'Can I take you somewhere?'

The Rabbit flinched. 'Probably not safe,' he said. 'What if someone saw me? Heard me?'

'There's no one else where I want to go,' the Young Man said, and picked up the basket. 'Come on, it's an adventure!'

'I'll hop, thanks,' the Rabbit said, eyeing the basket.

'Can't hop there,' the Young Man said cryptically. Then he grinned. 'Come on, hop to it!'

The Rabbit laughed despite himself. 'Is it that far?'

'You could say that,' the Young Man agreed, then shook the basket.

'Ye have to have me back an hour before sunset,' the Rabbit demanded. 'I need to get ready for Night Market.'

'You go?'

The Rabbit froze. 'I help me master get ready,' he said, looking away. 'He needs the extra paws.'

'I could help -'

'No, ye can't,' the Rabbit interrupted, trying to keep from panicking and doing a very poor job of it. 'It's complicated, and if I -'

'I'm just pulling your tail,' the Young Man said, rolling his eyes. 'I'll have you back by curfew. Come on!'

The Rabbit, with no small amount of trepidation, hopped into the basket. It was disorienting and unpleasant when the Young Man lifted the basket up, getting to his feet.

'You okay, Rabbit?' he asked, looking down at him. He wasn't the world's tallest bloke, but to the Rabbit's current diminutive height, he was a giant. Despite that, the Rabbit didn't feel quite so nervous anymore.

'Just don't jostle me too much, mate,' he warned, hunching down.

'I'll try not to,' the Young Man promised. 'But you'll want to hold on tight, the wind can be rough.'

'What -?'

At first, the Rabbit thought he was rising again, the Young Man lifting him higher; but the sensation didn't stop, and when he dared peek over the edge of the basket, he saw the Young Man's feet were already a half dozen metres off the ground.

'I should have mentioned,' the Young Man said, not sounding nearly as apologetic as the Rabbit thought he should. 'When you asked if I knew anything about magic, I might have been a tiny bit disingenuous.'

'A bit?!' the Rabbit shrieked. 'Ye're flying, and ye call it a bit?!'

'I'm not a great wizard yet,' the Young Man replied with a teasing tone, 'but flying's pretty easy, you know.'

'My fluffy arse it is!' the Rabbit snarled, but he suspected all of the threat was taken out of it by the way he was huddled into himself, shaking.

'I've got you, Rabbit,' the Young Man murmured, and cradled the basket to his chest. The basket steadied, and some of the fear leeched from the Rabbit's heart. 'Come on, look. I've never shown anyone this before.'

The Rabbit edged up, nervous for a multitude of reasons now, but the Young Man was steady as a rock, which soothed one of them, at least. The Rabbit dared to rest his paws against the rim and look over.

Below them were the foothills of the Great Northern Mountains, the town a bright blotch of colour a bit of a ways away, and the Rabbit's cottage a spot of riotous spring green directly below. The town was equidistant from the Rabbit's cottage and what was frankly the largest building the Rabbit had ever seen in his life.

'What in the bleeding hell is that?' the Rabbit asked incredulously.

'That's the summer palace. Castle, technically, there is apparently a difference.'

'Bloody oath. What are they housing, the whole army?'

'It's not that big,' the Young Man said, and when the Rabbit turned to eye him, he was grinning. 'The one in the capitol is like twice that.'

The Rabbit swore. 'Ye could fit the whole town in this one, though!'

'That's the point, Cottontail,' the Young Man said with an eye roll. 'You know, in case of disaster or invasion. You should sit back down, we're going to get moving.'

'To where?'

'Do you see that pond, four miles that way?' the Young Man waited until the Rabbit nodded. 'There's no way to reach it by land - it's at the top of a ridge, so impossible-to-climb cliffs in front of it and a sheer drop from the mountain above it. Can't see it from the ground, either.'

'So how'd ye find - oh,' the Rabbit said, and shook his head. 'Flying, yeah?'

'Exactly.' They began to move, and though the wind was chilly where it blew through the slats of the basket, the Young Man held it steady. The Rabbit sat back against the Young Man's chest, where it was warmer. 'I'm not actually that good at magic,' the Young Man said after a moment. 'My gr- teacher says I have a lot of time to learn, since wizards live so long, but so far all I've been good at is the flying thing, which any hackjob can do with a little effort, and really basic state changes - water to ice and straight back to vapour, that kind of stuff.'

'Ye've impressed me, at least,' the Rabbit huffed, and the Young Man laughed. He did that a lot - laughed, and smiled, and joked. He was just about the happiest bloke the Rabbit had ever met.

'I thought you knew magic.'

'Never done a tick of it meself,' the Rabbit replied. 'Told ye, m'all theory. Never tried it.'

'You should,' the Young Man said peaceably, beginning to descend - a gentler sensation than the ascent, but somehow more nerve-wracking. The Rabbit missed his next words, he was so distracted by the dropping of his own stomach.

'Sorry, what was that?' he asked as the Young Man's feet touched the ground.

'I said I bet you'd be really good at it,' the Young Man repeated. 'Though, maybe the whole enchanted thing might mess with it.'

'M'not enchanted,' the Rabbit snorted thoughtlessly.

'Course you are, how else -' the Young Man began, but then paused as he was setting down the basket. The Rabbit's heart sank. 'It's not an enchantment, is it,' he said slowly, not phrasing it as a question. 'It's a curse.'

'What's the bloody difference?' the Rabbit snapped, hopping out onto the ground. It was a drop, but no worse than off the top of his garden wall, and he landed neatly.

'You said you know theory,' the Young Man said, looking serious. The Rabbit had the entirely pointless thought that he missed the laughter. 'So you know that enchantments can be broken, but curses have conditions.' He swallowed audibly. 'And - well, curses have to be... earned.'

'I don't want to talk about this,' the Rabbit said roughly.

'I think we should,' the Young Man argued. 'You aren't the type to earn a curse.'

'And how would ye know that?' the Rabbit snarled, turning his back on the Young Man. 'Ye don't know me at all. Maybe I murdered someone. Maybe I hurt people -'

'You wouldn't,' the Young Man replied with a certainty the Rabbit felt was entirely unwarranted. 'You couldn't.'

'What makes ye so sure -'

'My sister.'

The Rabbit turned back, startled, and was only more so at the fierce look on the Young Man's face.

'You wouldn't accept payment for healing her - hell, you made it sound like you were really mad I'd even suggested it. That's not something a bad guy does, okay?'

The Rabbit was speechless.

'So - I mean, if I can help, let me help,' the Young Man said.

'Ye can't,' the Rabbit said at last, worn down by the patient silence the Young Man waited in. 'I'm happy the way I am. Happier than I was before.'

The Young Man made a face. 'What, living with only your master for company? Never leaving the house?'

The Rabbit smiled weakly, and twitched his whiskers. 'Neither of those are true anymore, are they?' he said, and slowly, reluctantly, the Young Man smiled again. The Rabbit thought there was a lot he'd do to see that smile, then wondered where the thought came from. 'Come on, ye dragged me out to this place,' he said, looking away. 'So show me.'

They spent some hours there - not enough to make the Rabbit nervous, but enough that he was surprised when he noted the change in the sun's position. He'd never been so comfortable with another person - nor in his own skin. The common thoughts of missing fingers or height were absent, chased away by the Young Man's teasing laughter and chatter.

It was strange. It was wonderful. The Rabbit didn't know what to make of it.

The Young Man flew him home with time to spare, and promised to visit sooner than he had this time. Not that the Rabbit demanded such a promise - he'd never dare - but the Young Man promised all the same.

The Rabbit, human once more, floated through the Night Market in a daze. If he'd known having a friend felt this good, he might have been more sociable when he was younger.

Even the thought that he missed his long ears did nothing to dampen his spirits.

Trudging his way home, the darkness lessened by the moonlight, he was so wrapped up in his own head that he almost walked into the subject of his thoughts without realising it.

'Holy dooley!'

'Is that a southern thing, freaking out when you see someone?' the Young Man asked in a serious tone, though his eyes - a bright, luminous blue in the moonlight - showed nothing but amusement. 'Cause Rabbit does the same thing, and I gotta tell you, I'm hoping it's a southern thing, or else you two don't like me very much.'

'It's gone two in the morning, ye loony,' the Rabbit replied, forgetting himself for a moment. It was so easy to forget that the Young Man knew him as two different people, with two different levels of familiarity. 'Er - sorry, reckon it's been a long day.'

'It's cool,' the Young Man said. 'And I know what time it is. Kind of hard not to, since I went for a night walk on purpose.'

'Ye what.'

'Well, walk is such a strict term,' the Young Man said airily. 'I prefer adventure, but then everyone thinks I'm off fighting dragons or something.'

'I take back me apology,' the Rabbit said flatly. 'Ye're clearly a loony.'

The Young Man laughed, bright-eyed and merry. 'Maybe a little.'

Opening his mouth to say something else, the Rabbit interrupted himself with a wide yawn. He'd gotten so little sleep the night before, it was hardly a surprise; when he opened his eyes again, the Young Man was giving him a look.

'Long day, right?' he said sympathetically. 'Go home, get some sleep. One of these days we'll have a real conversation.'

The Rabbit was so tired, he almost said they already had. 'Reckon you're right,' he sighed instead. 'Don't go too far - be careful, yeah? Never know what ye might find in the woods.'

This last was said a bit more bitterly than he'd meant, earning himself a curious look from the Young Man, but thankfully no questions.

'Okay, I will.' The Young Man smiled his blinding smile, and the Rabbit was helpless to do anything but smile back. 'Good night, Bunny.'

'Ye too,' the Rabbit said, and this time was the one to walk away. Behind him, there was a few heartbeats before the Young Man's footsteps picked up, but the Rabbit wasn't sure of the significance of that, if there was any.

Though he didn't notice (for what person thinks of the thoughts absent from their head?), the Rabbit had lost all thoughts of missing fur, or whiskers, or ears.

Had he thought about it, he would have come to a surprising conclusion - not that the Young Man fixed the underlying problem, for nothing short of a great work of magic or a difficult-to-come-to acceptance of oneself can cure a mismatch of soul and body, and though friendship has a great power of its own, it is neither truly magical in nature nor ultimately stemming from an understanding of the self. That said, the conclusion he would have reached was miraculous in its own right: that the Young Man had the gift of allowing the Rabbit to _forget_ the soul/body mismatch, and behave as if he was his soul alone, regardless of the bodily shape which housed him.

It was an unfortunate quirk of reality that kept this train of thought from the Rabbit entirely, and it was with a hazy sense of peace that the Rabbit stumbled home and fell asleep.

For the first time, into his dreams crept a hint of laughter, as crisp and bright as any sunny winter morning.

 

The Young Man visited again two days later, then the day after next; soon, they saw each other almost daily, though the Rabbit was exceedingly careful to shoo the Young Man away long before sunset. In the evenings, the Rabbit would tend his stall in the Night Market, same as he ever had. Now with a better understanding of what, precisely, constituted a friend, he realised that the Young Man was far from his only one. The Old Man and the Girl were very fond of him, stopping by each evening to gossip (the Old Man) and play for a moment (the Girl). He's never really noticed how many people went out of their way to give him a hello, to ask after his health, to spend time with him - nor had he noticed that he knew all of their names, families, and current problems. He had many friends, he realised, and it was a warm idea in his breast. These people liked him. Stranger yet, _he_ liked _them_.

'You're so much more cheerful lately, Bunny, dear,' the Witch said one week, as he wrapped up her usual order (witch's lace moss, cowslip, chicory root, without fail.) She patted him on the cheek and winked. 'Found yourself a pretty girl?'

'Not hardly,' the Rabbit said dismissively, chuckling at the idea. Him with a partner? Only if she didn't mind her husband losing almost four feet of height come sunrise. 'Two coins, Tooth, and none of that fairy gold trick this time, yeah? Fool me once, shame on ye...'

'It was only the once, Bunny, and you caught on too fast to be any fun. And it's not fairy gold, I'm not Fae.' The Witch huffed at him and paid out her bill. 'So,' she said when she was sure he was focussed on the coins - to make sure she really hadn't tricked him again - 'is it a pretty boy, then?'

'Excuse me?' the Rabbit said, startled enough to drop the coins onto the counter.

'Ahhh,' the Witch said knowledgeably. 'I'm not surprised, Bunny, dear. One can't always tell by sight, but a woman's intuition -'

'There's _no one_ ,' the Rabbit snapped, mortified. 'Ye need to mind yer own bizzo, Tooth. I'm not - there's _no one_ . Of _either_ persuasion.'

'As you say, dear, ' the Witch said, patting his cheek again. The Rabbit missed most in that moment his fur - it would have been impressively puffed in indignation and alarm, and then maybe she would have gotten the hint. 'Have a good night!'

'Ye too,' he replied grumpily, and began to pack up the stall - as always, the Witch's weekly purchases were the last of the night, and the Market was winding to a close.

Autumn was around the corner now, cool and nipping in the evenings. The summer had passed more quickly than the Rabbit had ever thought it could, and as he loaded empty jars and boxes into his little cart, he wondered idly if the Young Man would make an appearance tonight. He'd not shown up today, far from unusual, but the Rabbit found himself missing his company, different though it was after darkness fell.

His - friendship - with the Young Man when he wore his human shape was awkward in ways he didn't understand; each encounter was brief, and the Young Man was alternately teasing and shy, not a trait the Rabbit had expected after the ease with which they interacted when he was a rabbit. It bewildered him, to be honest, both the encounters themselves and the mystifying, unknown reason as to why the Young Man kept seeking him out.

'Excuse me, are you still open?'

The Rabbit paused, looked up. A cloaked figure stood before him, features almost entirely shadowed by their hood. The Rabbit would have known him anywhere, though, from the way he stood to the way his eyes gleamed luminous in the little lantern light that crept beneath the fabric. He wasted a moment gaping.

'What?' the Young Man asked cheekily - this meeting was to be the teasing kind, then.

'I thought ye said ye couldn't come here,' the Rabbit murmured, still stunned.

The Young Man frowned. 'What, Rabbit told you that, too?'

Right. It had been said to his rabbit form. 'In a manner of speaking,' the Rabbit agreed. 'What's brought ye here - special occasion force ye to risk the riot?'

The Young Man's eyes dimmed a bit, even as he laughed. 'In a manner of speaking,' he mimicked, but all the lightheartedness was gone from his voice.

'What's wrong?' the Rabbit demanded, not fooled for a moment, and the Young Man winced.

'I'm, uh, leaving. Tomorrow,' and suddenly, the Rabbit knew very intimately what a broken heart felt like. _Oh_ , he thought as he watched the Young Man gather up his words. _So that's what's going on_. 'I found out today, and I couldn't get away to tell Rabbit,' the Young Man continued awkwardly. 'And there's no way I can sneak away tomorrow before we leave. Even coming to you for a few minutes is really risky, but - I didn't want him to think I just lost interest or abandoned him, or something.' This time, the laughter was as harsh as sleet with self-loathing. 'He might, anyway. I didn't even get to tell him everything in person - he has to find out from you.'

'Reckon he'll understand,' the Rabbit said, guilt and loss and heartbreak like stones in his stomach and bile on his tongue. 'I'll let him know. Are ye -' He swallowed hard, hoping that would soothe his aching throat, make his voice less hoarse. 'Are ye ever coming back?'

The Young Man nodded hastily, and some of the weight eased from the Rabbit's heart. 'Yeah, of course,' he said. 'Normally it wouldn't be until next summer, but - uh, well, I'll be back on Midwinter. It's my birthday, you see, and twenty-one's kind of a big deal for my family.'

'So a few months?'

'And then only for the - well, um.'

And now they were back to shy. It was a familiar thing amongst all of the newness, and the Rabbit clung to it. 'For the...?' he prompted.

'I have something,' the Young Man started abruptly. 'For you. I won't be able to see Rabbit 'til next summer, because - it would be impossible for me to get away to see him at Midwinter, there'll be too many people - but - what I'm trying to say is -'

'Slow down,' the Rabbit said, holding up a hand. For the first time ever in the Young Man's company, he wished it was a paw.

'Ugh, here,' the Young Man said, looking annoyed with himself, and shoved a square piece of paper into the Rabbit's hands.

The Rabbit squinted at it in the light of the lanterns strung around the Night Market; the paper was thick and dark blue, and elegantly penned upon it in silver ink was the most astonishing thing the Rabbit had ever laid eyes on.

  
_You Are Cordially_  
_Invited to the Coronation Ball_  
_of His Royal Highness,_  
_the Crown Prince Jackson Overland Frost_  
_to Be Held on Midwinter's Eve,_  
_at the Hour of 8:00 PM_

 

The Rabbit stared at it for a long moment, before looking back up to the Young Man's face. He cleared his throat. 'This is the part where ye tell me I've not been entertaining the Crown Prince in me garden for weeks,' he said weakly.

'One, I'm not Crown Prince yet,' the Young Man said - the _Prince_ said, the Rabbit realised with no little horror. 'Two, Rabbit's been entertaining me. You're off the hook.'

The Rabbit looked back down at the invitation, and then up once more. He wasn't sure before he opened his mouth what he intended to say, but he was reasonably sure it wasn't the quiet, heartfelt 'Why?' that he heard.

'Neither of you knew who I was,' the Prince said, catching on immediately. 'I've never had a friend like that, much less two of them. And you and Rabbit have your own secrets - I thought maybe I could keep mine for a little while.'

'I didn't hear anything about the Princess being sick,' the Rabbit said, for lack of anything else to say.

'Grandfather kept it quiet. People in the capitol get kind of panicky, you know?'

With this new information, the weeks past looked very different, somehow stranger and more unearthly than they already had. The strangest thing of all - the weightiest, the most damning - was that the Rabbit had, quite hopelessly and by accident, fallen in love with the Prince.

'I have to go, they'll already be looking for me,' the Prince said apologetically. 'But - you'll come, won't you?'

The Rabbit opened his mouth in automatic refusal - then paused.

He'd be human - the sun would be long down. No one would know him, what with them all being nobility, he'd suspect. The Witch would delight at a chance to dress him up (she'd more than once complained that he'd look so _nice_ if he'd wear something more than his usual pants and dirt-stained shirt ensemble). And, even though he knew it was foolish, it was risky and mad and dangerous, it meant he'd see the Prince again before summer, have one night to keep in his memories.

The Prince was waiting for his answer, anxious, and slowly the Rabbit nodded. 'I'll come,' he said, and then the Prince smiled. The Rabbit tried to memorise the sight, knowing it would be a long time before he saw it again.

'Thanks, Bunny, you won't regret it,' the Prince said, then left with a light step, almost a skip, before the Rabbit could say anything else.

 

The Rabbit went home. He curled up in bed.

For the first time since he'd been a child, he wanted to cry.

Of course _he'd_ fall in love with a prince - the newly minted Crown Prince, no less. Of course his first love (and it was long overdue at thirty five years of age, he thought sourly) would be one doomed to failure. He was an herbalist, a cursed herbalist, for god's sake. What did he have to offer anyone, much less someone who had a whole kingdom to his name? The thoughts ran tight circles in his head, and when dawn arrived with the soft green light of the curse, he hasn't slept a single wink.

The week dragged without the Prince's company, the Rabbit's life duller for his absence, and when the time came for the Witch's weekly stop in, she took one look at him and frowned.

'Whatever is the matter, Bunny, dear?' she demanded before he could ask her why she was so early this week, the pale light of dusk still stronger than the lanterns. 'You look half dead!'

'I feel it,' the Rabbit admitted.

'You're closing early tonight,' she declared firmly, and began to pack up his wares. He was too tired to argue, heartsick and hurting, until she bespelled his cart and set off towards the east side of town, towards her home.

'Oi -'

'You're not staying alone tonight,' she said.

The Rabbit flinched. 'Tooth, ye don't understand -'

The Witch shot him a derisive look. 'I understand very well,' she said, and unfurled her wings with a snap. They blurred as she took flight and hovered about a foot in the air. 'I'm a witch. We know these things.'

Like ice had gripped his heart and stilled it, the Rabbit froze. ' _What_?' he managed at last.

'I'm sure you don't want this discussed in the open,' she said, and with little choice, the Rabbit followed her.

Her home was nothing like he'd expected, though he wondered why he'd ever thought so unusual a witch would have a common witch's hut. It was a great spire of gold and stained glass in the woods on the east side of town, hidden by wards and notice-me-not spells, and as the Witch bustled him inside, he was swarmed by hundreds of tiny birds, all making little chirping noises; after a moment, he realised they weren't birds, but tiny winged girls, hummingbird-like and delicate.

'Girls! Shoo!' the Witch commanded, and all but one went back to tending to various tasks within the brightly lit tower; the remaining bird-girl stayed with the Witch, sitting on her shoulder and watching the Rabbit avidly. 'The last of the little Fae,' the Witch explained. 'It's a dreadfully long story, but I'm their caretaker now. Come, sit, drink this.'

Somehow, she'd manoeuvred him onto a large pink cushion, and four of the bird-girls (he was sure they had a proper name, but he had no idea what it could be, what with the Fae being so rare) carried over a china teacup for him. The tea was both spicy and sweet, and warmth spread through him.

The Witch was watching him closely. 'So,' she said at last when he'd set aside the cup. 'You're cursed, aren't you?'

The Rabbit had known she knew - she'd all but said so in the town - but the words still hit him like a body blow. 'How did ye find out?' he asked, voice dull.

'I'm a witch, Bunny, dear,' she said. 'I can see the magic on you. I've known since we met. Don't worry, no one else knows,' she assured him. 'You've been very lucky.'

He'd not known witches could see magic. 'Can wizards see it too?' the Rabbit asked, dread pooling in his stomach.

'No. Witches are born; wizards, conjurers, sorcerers, they're all taught.' The Witch eyed him closely. 'Why?'

'Curious, is all,' the Rabbit said, but his sigh was too relieved to be convincing. The Witch, thankfully, let it lie.

'I know you're cursed, but I don't know how or why,' she said, pouring another cup of tea. 'Tell me.'

The Rabbit couldn't hold it in any longer. The whole thing spilled out of him at last, from the very beginning - from his walks in the southern forests as the Man, to his unfortunate encounter with the Sorcerer, to fleeing north. How he'd hidden here as an herbalist in the Night Market by night and as a rabbit by day. How he thought of himself as the Rabbit always, now, and never as the Man. How he'd never felt right in his own body, and still didn't with two bodies to be in.

Finally, his words wound down, and the Witch nodded sympathetically. 'That is a hard thing,' she said, and patted his hand. 'You are so remarkable - to find a way to be happy, even when cursed...' she shook her head. 'What changed? Why are you so miserable now?'

The Rabbit's dark skin flushed. The Witch sighed. 'Ahhh. The pretty boy of yours.'

'He's not mine,' the Rabbit snapped automatically, then flushed darker.

'Not yet, maybe,' the Witch replied serenely, and laughed at the face he pulled. 'He won't be able to resist you, Bunny, dear. Tell me about him.'

'M'not sure I can,' the Rabbit said slowly. 'He seems - he didn't want to tell _me_ who he was, I doubt he'd want me to say.'

'A secret lover! Bunny, you lead the most exciting life,' the Witch tittered, and the Rabbit flushed again.

'He's not - he's just me friend,' he protested. 'Me best friend. Even when he's an earbashing ratbag.'

'Sounds like love to me,' she teased.

The Rabbit sighed. 'On me part, maybe,' he admitted. 'Not on his. It's impossible.'

'Why?'

The Rabbit bit his lip, knowing it was a gesture he'd learned from the Prince and utterly unable to help himself. 'We met when he came to find a healer for his sister. Blue Mountain Fever - rare in these parts, I suppose, or maybe it's called something else.'

'Disalignment of the core,' the Witch murmured, frowning now. 'Where have I heard of that recently...'

'Well, I fixed it,' the Rabbit shrugged. Swallowed. 'Not before he tried to pet me, and I yelled at him.'

'Wait, you were -'

'A rabbit at the time, yeah. He came back later, once his sister was better, to return me basket. He'd decided we were friends, and I'd - I'd never had a friend before, I - he told me not to tell Rabbit he was coming, because he wanted it to be a surprise. The basket was his excuse to get in to see me.'

'And that was you like - this?'

'Yeah.'

'So he's friends with you in both forms -'

'Sort of.'

'- but he doesn't know it's _you_?' the Witch was staring at him like he was a potion that had unexpectedly turned green instead of blue. 'Bunny, why didn't you tell him?!'

'I'd kept it secret so long, by the time I knew I could trust him, it was too late,' the Rabbit said miserably. 'And now he's left until Midwinter, and even then he's not really back until next summer -'

'Wait! Wait, wait, wait!' the Witch cried, and the Rabbit realised he'd said too much. 'Bunny, tell me I'm wrong - _you're_ not the reason the castle's been in an uproar all summer because the Prince kept going missing, are you?!'

'I didn't _know_ it was the Prince!' the Rabbit protested. 'I'm from the _south_ , I'd never even seen the royal family before! He was just the bloke who loved his little sister to pieces and took me flying and called me his friend and laughed and made jokes and played pranks on me like ye wouldn't believe...' he stared off into the middle distance. 'He was just Jack, Tooth. I had no idea. He'd asked me to not try and find out.'

The Witch stared at him. 'We _are_ talking about the same prince, right?' she asked seriously. 'Prince Jackson the Sorrowful? The boy who hasn't smiled publicly since his parents died?'

'About yea tall, white hair, blue eyes like the sky at twilight?' the Rabbit said, knowing he sounded lovesick and not caring, holding his hand to the Prince's height. The Witch swore, startling him into dropping his hand, and pink and violet lightning flickered around her head.

'And he was laughing with you?' she asked wonderingly. 'Bunny, no one but the Princess has heard the Prince laugh in almost eight years.'

The Rabbit's heart hurt at the idea of the Prince - his laughing, smiling Prince - in so much pain.

'So how did you find out who he was if he told you not to?'

'He told me,' the Rabbit said. 'Gave me this.'

He took the invitation from his pocket, wrapped in wax paper and so carefully handled, and showed it to the Witch. She took it with trembling fingers, and was silent a moment. 'Tell me you're going,' she said at last.

'Promised I would,' the Rabbit nodded. 'I don't break me promises.'

'Bunny - no one else has been personally invited,' the Witch said flatly. 'You - you don't understand, Bunny, dear, even _my_ invitation came by courier.'

'Ye're -'

'I'm a friend of the King,' she said offhandedly, like it was a common thing. 'I've known the Prince and Princess since they were babes, and I've never - _never_ \- seen Jack do something like this. He hates balls and banquets and all of this royal nonsense.' The Rabbit thought that last night be a direct quote. 'And he gave this to you himself?'

The Rabbit shifted, warmth in his chest and on his cheeks. 'He did. Wanted to say goodbye.'

'Oh, Bunny,' the Witch burst into tears, 'You -'

'What's wrong?' the Rabbit asked, bewildered by the shift in mood.

'Nothing, dear, absolutely nothing,' she hiccoughed, utterly unconvincing, and stood. 'There's just one more thing I need to see, and then I'll let you sleep for today.'

'Today?' the Rabbit spluttered, but just then the sun came up over the horizon, and with a yelp and a spill of green light, the Rabbit changed.

When he could see again, the Witch was nodding thoughtfully, surrounded by a thick cloud of the bird-girls. 'I see,' she said cryptically. 'Come on, you should take a nap, then I'll bring you home.'

She didn't look at him with disgust, or pity, and the Rabbit rather thought that was the most important thing. He curled up in the cushion, finally exhausted enough from the confessions to sleep.

It was afternoon before he woke, and when he did, he found himself already bundled into his cart, which was trailing a serene Witch towards his cottage, the town behind.

'Good, you're awake,' she said, looking back, and brought the cart to a halt outside his door. 'Don't worry, no one saw us. I went around the town. Now, take tonight off, and tomorrow I'll come back. We'll start finding you something to wear for your pretty boy's ball, hmm?'

'He's not me pretty boy,' the Rabbit said, fur prickling in embarrassment. 'But alright, I suppose.'

The Witch smiled at him, and for a moment, the Rabbit missed the Prince more than ever. 'Don't worry so much, Bunny,' she said. 'I'll keep the secret - yours and his. I promise you, Jack isn't your only friend anymore. He never was.'

The Rabbit swallowed. 'Thank ye, Tooth.'

'For you? Any time. Besides, who else would get witch's lace moss for me? You know I hate to dig it up myself.' She winked charmingly at him when he laughed.

He said goodbye, and she left. He hopped into his cottage, still quite tired, and as he settled down, hope was like the first green shoots of spring in his chest.

Far away, the Sorcerer's hand shattered his scrying glass in rage.

This was too much to be borne. The absolute nerve of the Rabbit, to make friends, to _fall in love_ \- the curse would break soon, the Sorcerer knew, and with it, his only source of entertainment in over three decades.

Worse, the Sorcerer knew he'd gotten lucky this past night; the Rabbit hadn't described him in any detail, but if the curse broke, if he told the Prince everything, then it would reach the ears of the Witch, or worse, the King. The King, who would recognise the description. The King, who had banished him, who had kept him from the possibility of the greatest work of evil in this age -

The Sorcerer shook away the thoughts with long practice and a bitter twist of his mouth. He couldn't affect the curse itself - it was already fractured by the strain of the magic's uncertainty, and if he attempted to tamper with it, he could end up creating a feedback loop of magical backlash, which (judging from the the way he could feel the initial magic cracking at the edges), would be suicidal. But…

He didn't have to tamper with the curse, he realised, a smile curling his mouth. There is always a way into a person's heart, and the Rabbit wore his on his sleeve. And, of course, a curse could affect the innocent for one of three reasons:

Breaking a natural law.

Harming the caster.

Descent from one who'd harmed the caster.

Yes, the Sorcerer thought, he could work with this. Revenge was a dish best served cold, and he believed firmly (as did magic) that the sins of the father must be visited on the son. Or grandson, as the case might be.

A beautifully rich, dark future unfolded before the Sorcerer's mind's eye: the realisation of long shattered hopes and dreams, a great work resurrected from graveyard ash.

He turned and swept away, deeper into his iron and blacksteel tower. He had preparations to make.


	3. Chapter 3

For the Rabbit, time was a confusing mish-mash of too-slow and too-fast - every day that passed without the Prince's presence seemed longer than all the weeks he'd known him, but they piled up sooner than he'd thought. Autumn descended in a brief but brilliant paroxysm of colour and faded as quickly. The Witch was by every other day or so, which soothed some of the sting; at least he wasn't completely alone. He nevertheless would find himself twitching his nose, seeking the scent of dried leaves and fresh snow, ears cocked for a chiming laugh or a muffled chuckle. He missed the Prince more than he'd missed anything in his life, and he thought that if he'd not figured out his love before now, the deep ache in his breast wouldn't have left him in the dark for long.

Midwinter dawned cold and clear at last, wreathed in a gentle snow, and the Rabbit passed the time until dusk impatiently, sitting on his window sill and watching the trail for the first pink shimmer of the Witch's wings. She arrived just before the sun set, and was inside the cottage with numerous boxes floating behind her, carried by magic and the tiny bird-girls both, before the green light of the change could fade.

The suit she'd designed and handmade ('Magic just doesn't create the right drape, Bunny, dear’) was simple, the way the Rabbit had insisted, but rich in detail and quality. Deep, almost black forest green breeches, a carefully tailored cream shirt, and emerald green weskit with gold sunburst embroidery, paired with a long, swirling jacket the same colour as the breeches, had even the Rabbit humming in approval. Never mind the bird-girls, all twittering and adjusting the hang of the Rabbit's jacket.

'Absolutely dashing with your eyes, dear,' she said, tucking a golden kerchief into the weskit's pocket. 'You look like a king.'

'I hope not, or reckon he won't recognise me,' the Rabbit replied drily, hiding his nerves.

She paused. 'You have no idea, do you?'

'About what?'

'You're just about the most handsome man I've ever seen,' she said matter-of-factly. 'And I'm over five hundred years old, I've seen a lot of men. Bunny, dear, half of the town is in love with you.'

The Rabbit gave her a flat look. 'Pull the other one.'

'Oh, no, I'm absolutely serious. The town is divided on whether or not you knew. I hate being wrong,' she sighed. 'Oh, Bunny, dear, he's not going to know what hit him. Kings _wish_ they looked this good.'

Like clockwork, the Rabbit's dark cheeks grew darker. 'Er. Thank ye.'

'You're welcome, dear. I'll see you there, I still need to get dressed myself. Do you have the invitation?'

'Here,' he said, retrieving it from the shelf he kept it safe on, the edges of the silver ink beginning to fade but perfectly legible. He tucked it into his pocket, behind the kerchief to keep it safe from the snow.

'Excellent. Now, when you're announced -'

'Er, do I have to?' he asked uncomfortably. 'I'm - no one, Tooth, I'd rather just find him on me own.'

'You're not no one,' she said firmly, taking his large, dark hands in her marginally paler but significantly smaller ones. 'You hold your head high in that ballroom, Mr. E. Aster Bunnymund. And if anyone tries to give you a hard time, you remember you were the only one that Jack wanted there. I'll bet you every last one of my potions and spells that if he could have his way, it would be just you two there at all.'

The Rabbit felt too warm for the longest night of the year. 'Still,' he insisted, and she sighed.

'No, you do not have to be announced. Tell the announcer that, and you should be fine. Fair warning, though, he'll probably think you're a foreign royal hiding from an assassin, since those are the only people who don't want to be announced at one of these things.'

The Rabbit snorted. 'Buckley's chance, but I don't much care what he thinks.'

'Good. Now, get going. I still need to get into my dress - thank goodness for my girls, or I'd be here until tomorrow. As for you, I expect you to actually say hello when I arrive, if you spend the entire night staring into each other's eyes, I will be very cross.' The Witch kissed his forehead for luck.

'Thank ye, Tooth,' the Rabbit said, squeezing her hands gently. 'I could never have done this without ye.'

'Of course not,' she sniffed, but she was smiling. 'Now, shoo!'

'It's me house,' he laughed, heading for the door.

'Those are my clothes!' she retorted, laughing too, and then the Rabbit was out in the night. He pulled the warm jacket tightly around him and set off, hope like moonlight on his path.

He'd been so distracted by the preparations for the ball that he'd forgotten the town would be having its own festival; after all, it wasn't just the Prince's birthday.

The square was full of stalls, much more brightly coloured than usual for the holiday, and four mid-sized bonfires were spaced throughout, dancers and merrymakers wherever he looked. It was such a hectic mass of people that the Rabbit thought he'd gotten through unnoticed, until he heard one of the Williams (William the Absolute Youngest, he was sure) called out, 'Hooray! Go get him, Mr. Bunny!'

The Rabbit froze, stunned, at the uproar of laughter and cheers that went up at that, and he whirled, face feeling hotter than any of the bonfires. 'What did ye say?'

The Old Man swept in, the Girl by his side as always. 'Exactly what he ought!' the Old Man laughed. 'Nicholas says he's not seen his grandson so excited for a ball in his life, haha!'

'Does everyone know?' the Rabbit asked hoarsely.

'We're all cheering for you, Bunny!' the Girl said with a smile, confirming the inevitable. 'Now, go! You're gonna be late!'

'Er, right,' the Rabbit replied, still stunned ( _how do they all know? Unless - oh, she and I will have a long talk about secrets after this -_ ), and left the town to the sounds of good-natured laughter and more than one catcall.

Little fairy lights (witchlights, they'd been called down south) bobbed and glowed on the road to the castle, and they grew brighter then dimmed after he'd passed. Soon, he was at the castle itself - far more massive on the ground than it had looked from the air - and presenting his invitation to a cheerfully threatening looking man with enough hair to make a bear jealous.

'And how would ye like to be introduced?' the bear of a man asked in a southern accent only a shade lighter than the Rabbit's own.

'Rather not,' the Rabbit said apologetically, and the Bear's expression brightened.

'Far from home, aren't ye?'

'Not anymore.' the Rabbit replied.

'That's good to hear,' the Bear said with a warm, understanding smile, handing back the invitation. 'Yer brother arrived just a few minutes past.'

The Rabbit fell still.

'Made a beeline for the prince, he did,' the Bear continued, oblivious to the Rabbit's confusion. 'Seemed like an old friend, but had a strange name - begging pardon, but never heard of no Bunnymunds before.'

'Er - we're from the old forests,' the Rabbit invented, heart racing. 'Are ye - are ye sure he's me brother?'

'Aye, looks just like ye, if a bit paler in the face. Doesn't seem to spend time in the sun. Those greys natural?'

'What - oh, yeah.' The cold touch of fear was sinking into his bones; it couldn't be. But who else would try...?

'Ye must be his older brother, then, he's still got some dark in. Alright, I've kept ye long enough, in ye get.'

'Thank ye,' the Rabbit said weakly, and entered.

The Rabbit hadn't understood what the Witch had meant about the way he looked until he entered the ball unannounced and still drew half the eyes of the people inside. As he descended the staircase, he heard more than one sigh, and he flushed dark when he heard one woman say, 'Oh, this one's much lovelier than his brother.'

He reached the floor, and went to the woman in question. 'Pardon,' he said, smiling as best he could through his discomfort and fear, and she smiled back, charmed. 'Ye've seen me - me brother?'

'Oh, everyone's seen him, darling,' she hummed. 'The prince has had eyes for no one else! They should still be dancing.'

The Rabbit turned to peer at the ballroom floor, and his heart sank. He was too late.

The Prince was waltzing around with a man who could have been the Rabbit's double, save for a scattering of dark hairs near his temples and a shadowy cast over his eyes. The Prince seemed completely unaware of the differences, and the Rabbit ducked away into the crowd, damning himself in his head as he went. Of _course_ the Prince couldn't tell the difference - not once had they met in full light, and any small difference could be explained away by the brightness of the ballroom. The Sorcerer - for who else would take the Rabbit's form in such a way? - was taking advantage of that fact. The Rabbit's only consolation was that, though the Prince looked dazed in the double's arms, he wasn't smiling, and occasionally a frown would flicker over his brow.

Over the noise of the crowd and the music, the Rabbit heard the Bear bellow out, 'Her Eminence, the Witch-General, Lady Toothiana!'

'Oh, thank god,' the Rabbit muttered, and turned.

The Witch was wily and clever, he knew, and so he didn't panic when she approached the Prince and the imposter. He simply watched and waited, accepting a glass of some sparkling drink from a passing attendant.

She spoke with them both for a moment, then turned away; the Rabbit raised his glass to her when she caught his eye, and she bustled over.

'You didn't tell me you had a brother, Bunny, dear,' she said, voice falsely airy, a tremor of nerves beneath.

'Didn't know he'd come this far north,' the Rabbit answered, looking at her as steadily as he could. 'Seemed pretty busy, last I saw. Cursing his life left and right.'

The Witch's eyes flashed. 'Is that so,' she said. 'That's a shame. Take a walk with me?'

'Happily,' the Rabbit replied, offering his arm politely, and she all but dragged him to a quiet corner, hidden from view by a pillar.

'Is that the sorcerer who cursed you?' she demanded, a privacy ward flickering to life around them. Her eyes, wide and violet, were scanning his face, looking at something he couldn't see.

'I can't prove it, but yeah,' he sighed. 'Who else would try something this daft?'

'I can prove it. I'd know his dark magic anywhere,' the Witch whispered. 'I'd have known earlier, if your magic didn't almost mask the colour of the curse. A little over three decades ago, the King, his advisor, and I fought him. There was a terrible war - he was... Evil doesn't express it right. He hated the Fae, and they finally asked for our help, but it was too late. He'd killed the Fairy Queen. We banished him, but he must have been better at hiding than ever we thought. I can see his black magic at the edges of yours - all over his face -' She swallowed. Looked at the Rabbit. 'And around Jack's.'

' _What_?'

'The Sorcerer - Pitch Black - has a spell on him,' the Witch explained, misery and fear in equal measure on her pretty face. 'I know the shape - a love curse. Forbidden, wicked, but that's never stopped him before. If he can convince the prince to kiss him, it will become permanent, and no one will be able to free him save himself.'

'But - Jack's innocent,' the Rabbit protested numbly. 'He can't be cursed.'

'If it's in revenge for Pitch's banishment, then the magic will allow it,' the Witch insisted. 'Still, this isn't about Nick - it's about you. Why does he hate you so much?'

'I have no idea,' the Rabbit huffed, infuriated that the Prince had been dragged into this. 'I told ye - I'd never seen the bloke before he rocked up.'

The Witch paused, and again, she looked at him with the distance in her gaze he was coming to associate with her magic sight. 'No,' she said slowly, a strange tone to her voice. 'But he might have seen you. Never mind,' she said to the Rabbit's bewildered look. 'We need to get Jack away from him.'

'Too right we do,' the Rabbit muttered, teeth grit. 'He doesn't deserve to - this is me fault, I have to fix it.'

The Witch shot him a disapproving look, but they both looked around the pillar back onto the ballroom floor; the Prince still whirled with the Sorcerer, but a frown was permanently on his face.

'What do we do?' the Witch said despairingly. 'Last time it took all three of us just to banish him, and now he has a hostage -'

'Listen, get the King and his advisor - are they both here?'

'Of course.'

The Rabbit thought quickly. 'Get them, four heads are better for planning than two. I'll keep an eye on Jack, only interfere if something happens, yeah? Ye might want to hurry.'

The Witch nodded, looking a little more settled. 'Do you know any magic?'

'Theory.'

'It might be enough. Listen closely,' the Witch commanded. 'When the time comes, think your hardest about the way you feel about Jack, and try to push it in his direction. It might be enough to jostle the curse, enough to knock him off balance. If not, just jump up and push them apart - whatever you do, _don't let Jack kiss Pitch Black_!'

'What if -'

'The prince has to kiss _him_ , not the other way around,' the Witch reassured him. It wasn't very reassuring. 'Just keep a close eye, okay?'

She bustled off again, green-and-purple feathered skirts brushing against the floor, wings tight with anxiety. Still, the Rabbit thought he could see how she might have earned the title Witch-General.

The Rabbit watched the Prince, trying to ignore the bile-like taste of despair that coated his tongue. _Come on, Jack,_ he urged as they began yet another dance. _Can't ye tell it's not me? I know we haven't known each other long, but ye have to know this! Break the spell!_

He didn't dare try the trick the Witch had suggested yet, and his silent prayers had no effect. The dance ended, the Prince still with that faint frown, and the Sorcerer drew the Prince away towards a wide arch leading out to a terraced balcony. The Rabbit followed, his time as a rabbit giving him an unconscious grace and knack for going unnoticed. He didn't realise what he was doing, nor how remarkable it was; he was focussed on his goal.

The Rabbit hung back in the shadows, concealed by yet another pillar, near enough to see and hear.

'I imagine ye invited me here for a reason,' the Sorcerer said in the Rabbit's voice, but nevertheless didn't sound very much like him.

The frown on the Prince's brow deepened for an instant. 'I did,' he said, voice dull and dragging, as if he had to take the time to choose each word before he said it. He sounded drugged to the Rabbit's ears, who missed more than ever the long ears of his rabbit shape. 'I wanted - I wanted -'

He seemed to be struggling for the word he needed, and the Sorcerer rolled his stolen eyes. 'I know what ye wanted. If ye can't speak it aloud, then show me.' He leaned against the rail of the balcony, stiffer than ever the Rabbit would have, and parted his lips in the mockery of a kiss.

The Rabbit's heart seized with panic, and without any conscious effort, his emotions for the Prince welled up in his chest: the laughter and teasing, the persistence, the friendship and care and affection and - _Jack!_ he thought in a desperate mental shout.

The Prince, who'd begun to take a step forward, stumbled back. For the first time all evening, his eyes looked clear, and his expression was stricken. 'I - I'm sorry,' he whispered, clutching a hand to his head as if it hurt. 'I can't. I can't do this.'

The Sorcerer looked oblivious, still leaning against the rail. 'Do what?' he asked blandly.

The Prince looked as if he wanted to cry. 'I really like you, Bunny,' he said, looking at his feet. The Rabbit had the inappropriate thought that it was strange to see the Prince in shoes. 'You're amazing, I promise. But I - I messed up. I thought you were - that I could - but I'm sorry. I'm in love with someone else.'

'Ye're what?' the Sorcerer said, stunned.

The Rabbit held very still as the Prince whispered, 'I - I'm in love with Rabbit.'

'Ye fell in love with a _rabbit_?' the Sorcerer sputtered, too surprised to begin to understand, and the Prince reared back, looking furious.

'He's your friend, too! How can you say that?!' the Prince snarled. 'He's funny, and clever, and the best man I've ever known, even if he _is_ a rabbit. Yes, I love him. Is that so hard to believe?'

'He's - he's cursed!'

'So?' the Prince said fiercely. 'We'll break that someday, I know we will. Until then, I love him, and I'm going to keep loving him regardless of if you approve!'

The Sorcerer's stolen face was still, dangerously blank. 'And if he's a rabbit forever?' he asked, only barely maintaining the Rabbit's accent.

'What he looks like doesn't matter,' the Prince scoffed. 'But he won't be. I'll make sure of it.'

The Rabbit's head rang, his chest hurt, all his joints burned and his bones ached and his vision swam; he staggered out from behind the pillar, unheeding, and looked up with eyes as green and luminous as any of his transformations. The Prince whirled on his heel, startled, and gaped at him. 'Bunny?' he said, and a calculating look swept over his features. He snapped a hand out, and ice crackled to life, curling up and up, until he held a shepherd's crook of what looked like frozen moonlight, which he pointed without hesitation at the Sorcerer. 'I thought something was weird,' he said, voice as cold as his ice as he placed himself squarely between the Rabbit and the Sorcerer. 'Everything was hazy. Who are you?'

The Sorcerer sneered. The Rabbit only noticed in a far off part of his mind, distant in his own body. Past him came three people - a massive man in rich robes and a thick white beard, a much smaller but no less wide man all in gold, and the Witch, who landed with a flutter beside him and touched his face.

'Absolutely sickening to listen to,' the Sorcerer sighed, and dispelled his disguise and the accent both with a wave of his hand. 'I suppose a thank you is in order for sparing me any further drivel.'

'How _dare_ you come into my home,' the King roared, 'threaten my grandson -' but beneath his voice, the Witch called the Prince's name.

The Prince came, fury taking a backseat to fear as he took in the Rabbit's state. 'Tooth, what's wrong?' the Prince asked.

'Let us handle Pitch Black,' she said, hand falling to the Rabbit's shoulder. 'He needs you.'

'Me? What can I -'

'Trust me, you're the only one who can help,' she said, and brushed past him, joining the other two in a wall of human bodies, protecting the Prince and the Rabbit.

The Rabbit had eyes only for the Prince, who was kneeling beside him (when had he fallen to his knees?)

'What can I do, Bunny?' he asked, and nervously, his pale hands cupped the Rabbit's jaw, turning it this way and that as if the different angles might hold the key. 'How can I help?'

'Did ye mean it?' the Rabbit gasped as the pain spiked at the Prince's touch. 'Do ye really love me?'

'You?' the Prince repeated, then his blue eyes, so beloved, flashed bright with understanding. 'Oh, my god,' he breathed. 'You're Rabbit. You're the same person. You were always -'

'Did ye mean it?' the Rabbit pressed, all of his bones trembling as if about to crack from pressure.

'Of course I did,' the Prince said immediately, his fingers trembling as well where they stroked over the Rabbit's cheeks. 'I always will, no matter what you look like.'

'What if I _am_ a rabbit? If that's me true shape?'

'Then I've already got a lot of practice,' the Prince quipped, and grinned his brilliant grin. 'I love you, Cottontail. That won't change, even if you do.'

The Rabbit gave a sob of pain and deep, wrenching joy as the heat and pressure beneath his skin exploded outward, green light like the thousands of transformations before it had condensed into one brilliant flash. Behind the Prince, the Sorcerer howled at the same instant, dissolved in the brightness and startling cries from his three old enemies. Neither the Prince nor the Rabbit were paying attention, blinded and deafened by the light.

Some of the Rabbit's bones lengthened, some shortened; an unpleasant prickle covered him head to toe as fur sprang up; and finally, the light faded, and the Rabbit was draped limply in the Prince's deceptively strong arms.

'Uh,' the Prince whispered, sounding like his voice was having trouble leaving his throat, 'what _are_ you, Bun-bun?'

'What?' the Rabbit asked, his own voice rough in his his ears as they swivelled around. Then he realised what had just happened, and his paws went up to his ears. His ears. His _paws_. 'I have no idea,' he admitted at last. 'But it feels - right. I feel like me.'

More so than he ever had, in truth; for the first time, his soul felt like it fit in the space of his body, and the Rabbit helped the Prince to his feet, his own moving in a natural flow that the strange bends of his joints shouldn't have allowed.

'Thought so,' the Witch clucked, and the Rabbit and the Prince both flinched. They'd forgotten for a minute that anyone else existed. 'It explains so much, Your Majesty.'

The Prince made a face. 'I told you to stop calling me that when I was, like, four.'

'I wasn't talking to you,' the Witch said flatly, and turned her violet gaze onto the Rabbit.

'Excuse me,' the Rabbit managed weakly. 'Ye're not - ye can't mean me -'

'I understand,' the King rumbled, voice a thicker northern accent than the Rabbit had ever heard. It carried the echoes of command and power, but at the moment, it just sounded wondrous. 'Come. This is not conversation that should be held with audience.'

The Rabbit realised a crowd was beginning to gather, and his ears flattened to his head, his fur prickling awfully. Then he froze, whipped back around. 'Wait, the Sorcerer - where did -'

The Prince's hand tightened in his, sharing in the panic, but the Advisor flicked his fingers back and forth in strange patterns, and the hand relaxed a bit; it was a sign language, the Rabbit realised when the Witch translated with a feral smile, 'Magical backlash.'

'Ah,' the Rabbit said, not understanding in the least. Behind them, he thought he could see a shadow in the floor, like spilled charcoal dust or ashes.

The Prince's hands tightened around the Rabbit's once more. 'Does that mean - is the curse gone for good?' he demanded of the Witch.

'It's gone,' the Witch confirmed. 'The only magic on him now is his own.'

The Prince nodded to her, then bit his lip before looking up at the Rabbit. The bit lip became a tiny smile, shy, then growing, laughter slowly building up behind it. His blue eyes demanded an answer, wide and jubilant, and the Rabbit heard a chuckle leave his own lips. Between the two of them, the sound grew, filling the stunned silence around them, and like they'd planned it (though of course they'd done no such thing), the Prince flung his arms over the Rabbit's shoulders at the same time as the Rabbit grabbed his waist.

Laughing more freely than he ever had, the Rabbit picked the Prince clear off the ground and spun him through the air. The Prince laughed back, delighted, and they spun to a stop, tangled together. 'You're free!' the Prince gasped out when he had the breath to spare, hugging the Rabbit tightly around the neck.

'Ye freed me,' the Rabbit agreed, holding him close. 'Ye did it, ye _brat_.'

'Your brat, you overgrown rabbit,' the Prince replied, burying his face in the fur of the Rabbit's neck.

'Yer overgrown rabbit, if ye'll have me.'

'I said I loved you, didn't I?'

The Rabbit opened his mouth to respond, to say the words that had been hovering in his tongue for months now, when a polite cough interrupted him. 'We might want to celebrate in private,' the Witch said delicately, and the Rabbit's ears flattened at the same time as the Prince blushed a bright red.

'Er, yeah,' he said, and set the Prince down. 'I'm -'

'Don't you dare say sorry,' the Prince said, taking his paw in hand once more. 'You have nothing to be sorry for. Are you kidding? This is the most exciting coronation ball any of these guys have ever seen.'

'Hear hear,' the Witch said cheerfully. 'Nick, handle the mob, would you? I'll bring these two to the comfortable sitting room.'

The King sighed, looking reluctant, but stepped forward to address the curious and murmuring crowd of guests. The Witch ducked and wove through the crowd in the opposite direction, the Advisor tottering after her with surprising grace for his girth, and while the Rabbit might have had trouble navigating the crowd before, for some reason he now had no trouble keeping pace with the Prince, who might otherwise have been towing him along by the paw.

It helped that the stunned crowd didn't much want to stay in their way.

They left the ballroom, walked through more hallways than the Rabbit knew how to count, and at some point, they acquired a fifth member - a young girl with dark brown hair and a blue gown like the deepest sea. Her golden circlet was what gave her away, however.

'That was a bit much, even for you,' the Princess said to the Prince, who made a face. 'Who's he?'

'Can you wait until I've gotten the whole story, Em?' the Prince sighed, sounding resigned to his fate.

'Ye can call me Bunny,' the Rabbit supplied helpfully, feeling much braver than he usually did, and the Prince's mouth quirked up as the Princess took a doubletake.

'You're kidding.'

'E. Aster Bunnymund, at yer service,' the Rabbit replied mildly.

The Princess laughed, high and merry. 'That's the best name I've ever heard,' she chuckled as the Witch opened a door in front of them.

'Thank ye,' the Rabbit said, smiling at the young girl. 'I picked it out meself.'

'It's not your real name?'

'It is now,' the Rabbit shrugged.

The Prince looked very curious, but the Witch just nodded. 'That's common,' she said, settling them all within the room, decorated with warm yellows and rich reds. It was very comfortable. 'Most don't keep their birth names.'

'What are you talking about?' the Prince said, confused.

'Just what I said,' the Witch said as the King entered the room. 'It's very common for the Fae to choose names for themselves.'

The Rabbit stared, wide-eyed. 'I'm not Fae,' he said, but the Witch gave him a look. 'Am I?'

'There is story you must be told,' the King said in a kindly voice. 'You will not understand remarkable series of events that led you here until you do.'

'I'm not human?' the Rabbit said, still stuck on this.

'You never were,' the Witch said gently. 'It's not your fault you didn't know - the human shape is part of the changeling enchantment.'

'The what?'

'From beginning, Toothiana,' the King said reprovingly, and she rolled her eyes.

'Then you tell the story, you know I'm no good at it.'

'I intended to,' the King said wryly, and the Prince have a little laugh beside the Rabbit. The King looked stunned at this, and the Rabbit recalled what the Witch had said, what she had called him - Prince Jackson the Sorrowful. He tightened his paw around the Prince's hand, who shot him a smile.

'Let me explain,' the King began.


	4. Chapter 4

'One hundred years ago, there was sorcerer who was terrified of death. Nothing can stop its coming for mortal man - wizards, many wizards, have wasted dozens of lifetimes in search. Millennia, nothing! As it should be! Wizards already live so very long lives - thousands of years, we do not blow ourselves up first.' The King chuckled. 'But sorcerer, he is smart. He knows death comes for us all, one day. So he searched for different kind of immortality - for power, recognition. They say man is only dead when no one remembers man's name, after all.

'Pitch Black feared death, but he despised Fae.'

The Rabbit frowned, and the Prince's hand in his paw was tight. He'd clearly not heard the entirety of this story, either.

'It was jealous hatred - Fae were powerful magicians, politically connected to every kingdom in world! They were never numerous as mortals, but they never needed be so: Fae are immortal, save sickness or violence.'

The Rabbit felt a little sick. The feeling was soothed some by the Prince's thumb running over the back of his hand in a reassuring motion, but the implications of what the King had just said were - boggling.

'Fae were everything Pitch Black wanted to be, and he despised them for his own lack. He was convinced, if he only discovered source of their immortality, he could use secret to terrorise them, make them know his fear! His name would be known far and wide, the Faekiller, the Feardeath!'

'The magic he found,' the Witch picked up, seeing that neither the Rabbit nor the Prince was understanding, 'was distilled fear. Fear, more than death, is the enemy of all life - fear stagnates, kills creativity, kills hope.'

The Witch tutted disapprovingly. 'The magic he found was powerful, yes, but it carried a terrible side-effect. Its use slowly twisted the already dark-minded sorcerer until his initial desire - 'revenge' on the Fae, power, recognition - was wider, more vast. Why ruin the Fae alone, when you can take revenge on the whole world?'

'Pitch retreated from world to study, to experiment,' the King continued. 'He needed to understand enemy, to understand their magic. Once he had Fae out of way, nothing stood between him and world's destruction.

'Fae magic is all that is good and alive in world.' The King waved a hand carelessly, and above his palm lights coalesced, rising like trees, uncurling like petals. 'It makes what wizards and witches and sorcerers do look like parlour tricks. It moves in subtle, far-reaching ways - it is in roots of world, and like sap in great tree, wells up from there.'

The Prince rolled his eyes. The Rabbit crooked his ear over as the Prince whispered to him, 'Great, he's in teaching mode now. Hope you didn't want to hear the story.'

The Rabbit was hard-pressed to hide his laughter at the Prince's long-suffering tone, but was helpless to hide his chuckle when the King gave his grandson an impressive stink-eye.

'What he found,' the Witch said loudly, looking tetchy, 'was that the fear magic could - corrode the Fae magic, melt it and mould it as if it was lava touching rock. Not long after, the first of the Fae disappeared, and the first of the Fearlings came in the night.'

'All good was stripped from them,' the King intoned. 'All light, all love, all hope. They became monstrous, shadows of themselves, and gave nightmares to everything they came across. Those they left alive, at least.'

'The Fae were a proud people,' the Witch said, sounding like she spoke through an old pain. 'Wise, oh yes - you do not live as long as the Fae do and gain no wisdom - but proud. They refused to admit they needed help, even as more and more began to grow missing. As stronger and stronger Fae began to go missing, new kinds of Fearlings began to show their faces - Pitch's generals, the Nightmare Men. They could still think, and were devoted to the cause of wiping their former brothers and sisters out.'

'First Nightmare Men appeared almost forty years ago. Pitch had waged war against Fae for fifty years at that point,' the King said, reaching over and patting the Witch's hand when her voice faltered. 'The Fairy Queen knew now that she needed outside assistance; life is powerful, and good, but Pitch wielded death and fear, and every soldier Fae lost was soldier added to Pitch's armies.

'She came to me one spring day.' The King’s voice was far off, reminiscent, fond; they'd been friends, the Rabbit supposed. 'No court. The Fairy Queens have never kept one, way humans do. She was frank, straightforward; she'd only come by once before, years past, when I was child. She remembered me, she said. I had good heart. Her people needed my help.'

'He put out a call to all magic users in the kingdom,' the Witch continued. 'He asked who would be brave enough to stand and fight the Fearlings. Only thing was...'

'They were afraid,' the Rabbit finished quietly, startling the Prince, but the Witch nodded.

'Only two brave souls answered my call,' the King said, a ragged pride in his voice. 'Great illusionist Sanderson Mansnoozie -'

The Advisor waved at the Rabbit; he'd not contributed to the story so far, but the Rabbit suspected that had less to do with not wanting to talk and more with not wanting to have to wait to be translated.

'And unknown witch, Toothiana.'

The Witch gave the King an affronted look. 'I'm from a different kingdom! I was quite well known there!'

'Unknown to me,' the King amended, placating, and the Witch allowed her ruffled feathers to be soothed.

'Why didn't anyone else help?' the Princess demanded, looking scandalised. 'They were needed!'

'People were afraid, dear,' the Witch said gently. 'Villages had been destroyed in the course of Fae battles with the Fearlings; they wanted no part. And Nick didn't demand people fight; he asked. You can't force people to fight fear. They must choose on their own.'

'Still,' the Princess muttered, visibly disgruntled. 'They should have helped. I would have helped.'

'We assisted them for year, almost,' the King said, giving his granddaughter an adoring look. 'Pitch was strong, but we four were team - best team, and best friends. Tide was turning, we thought. Enough that Fairy Queen entrusted us with greatest secret, believing it safe.

'Nightmare Man heard, though. We had tail at all times, though we did not know until too late. And what we'd mistaken for weaknesses of Pitch were lies. His numbers had not thinned. He had simply waited until he knew our weaknesses.'

'He attacked us that night,' The Witch said, her voice distant but venomous with old rage. 'No warning, greater numbers than we'd ever seen. Entire garrisons were taken at once. And the Queen - the Queen fell. Tainted. Corrupted. We couldn't save her - there was no saving her. We could only defeat the Fearlings and the Nightmare Men, give her a quick death, and make sure that it could never happen again.'

Her grief resonated in the Rabbit's breast, aching, and from the way the Prince's hand had tightened hard around his paw, he wasn't alone.

'When battle was over,' the King said quietly, 'little more than quarter of Fae remained. Some scattered to lick wounds; little Fae chose to follow Tooth home. All, regardless of decision, mourned the Queen's death. And worse - worse than her death, was that we had failed to keep our promise to her.'

'The Fairy Queen had given birth to a son, just a year past,' the Witch said. The Prince jerked. 'Fae often only have one child in their lifetimes, if they ever do. And when she entrusted us with this secret, she made us promise that he would be welcome in our homes, should the worst happen, and that he would grow up loved. I think she knew what was coming. But when we went to find him after the battle, he was gone. Empty nursery, the governess missing, blood on the wall.'

'We'd stripped Pitch of most of his power, banished him from kingdom, but we had failed friend.' the King looked ill. 'We grieved. Buried the dead. Went on with lives. I had son of my own, only just man, and we had lives. We did not think - we did not know -'

The Rabbit felt ill himself. 'Ye're wrong,' he said, as gently as he could. 'I might be Fae, I grant ye, but - no, I can't be. I'm just a changeling, is all.'

'Oh, Bunny, dear,' the Witch said, large violet eyes tearing up. 'Like this? You're the spitting image of your mother. Taller, by a lot, and male, of course, but the fur, the marks, your eyes -' she sniffed, dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.  'I should have known. I'd never seen magic so green as hers until you changed.'

The Rabbit was wordless. The Prince squeezed his paw gently, then said, 'So Bunny's the long lost prince of the Fae? ' He was asking the question the Rabbit couldn't, and for that (for so many reasons), the Rabbit loved him.

'The nursemaid must have run with you,' the Princess mused aloud. 'Swapped you for some dying human kid. Isn't that how it normally works?'

The Witch nodded. 'Then, when you were cursed, Pitch's magic reacted funnily with the changeling enchantment already in place - the one keeping you in a human shape. That's why the curse light was green, Bunny, dear; the curse made you to do it, but you were shape-shifting back and forth. The curse forced you into an animal shape, so your magic chose the animal closest to your own, natural shape.'

'Why were you cursed in the first place, Cottontail?' the Prince asked, and the Rabbit, despite everything, couldn't help smiling at what was starting to feel like an endearment.

'Wandered into the patch of woods he was hiding in,' he sighed. 'Trespass, even though the tosser didn't even have a fence up.'

The Prince laughed loudly, the Princess joining him, and the Rabbit resisted the strange urge to nuzzle the Prince with his nose.

'Well, no wonder the curse broke like it did, it outweighed the crime three to one,' the Witch huffed. 'What a foolish mistake.'

'Ye don't think he did it because I'm Fae?' the Rabbit asked.

'If he'd known you were Fae, he'd have tried to change you, Your Majesty,' the Witch said. The Rabbit winced. 'You'll have to get used to it,' she scolded, not unkindly. 'You're the Fairy King now.'

The Rabbit and the Prince froze at the same time.

'Ye're joking,' the Rabbit whispered.

'No way,' the Prince breathed.

'Lucky for you, is not like being King elsewhere,' the King said, sounding a touch envious. 'Most Fae were independent, even when your mother was Queen.'

'Oh, thank god,' the Rabbit sighed, slumping back into his seat. 'I barely manage to run me stand, what with Tooth trying to trick me with fairy gold half the time. How on earth would I be king?'

'It was just the once,’ The Witch huffed, but she was smiling. ‘The girls will love to meet you like this - many of them were around and knew your mother. They'll happily let the remainder of the Fae know. They acted as messengers; they'll love it.'

The Advisor, so far content to watch the proceedings, signed something; the Prince translated it quietly to the Rabbit as the others nodded, saying, 'You're going to have to hold court at least once a century.'

'I've got no idea how to do that, or what I'd say,' the Rabbit protested, the panic rising once again in his chest. 'I'm just an herbalist, I -'

'That's okay, I do,' the Prince said cheerfully.

The King eyed him. 'You have own duties,' he reminded him. 'You may only assist Fairy King - ahem, Bunny - in summer, you know.'

'Nah, I can do it year round if I do this,' the Prince replied, and stood before bowing to the Princess. 'I, Prince Jackson Overland Frost, do abdicate to you, Princess Emma Overland Frost.'

'About time,' she sniffed, while the King spluttered.

'You've only been Crown Prince for few hours!' the King protested at last.

'I was going to abdicate tomorrow, anyway,' the Prince said with a happy sigh as he flopped back down onto the couch beside the stunned Rabbit. 'Never wanted to be King, and Emma is way better at this stuff.'

'She's eleven!'

'Says a lot, doesn't it,' the Prince hummed.

'Ye didn't have to do that,' the Rabbit said quietly, taking the Prince's hand again.

'I wanted to,' the Prince replied. 'The last few months sucked without you. I'd way rather be here - run the northern part of the kingdom, help you out with this. If you'd like, of course,' he said, suddenly nervous.

The Rabbit gave in and hugged the Prince near, nuzzling his temple with his new (but so very familiar) nose.

'I'd be honoured, ye brat,' he said hoarsely, and the Prince's brilliant smile was all he could have ever asked for.

The King sighed loudly.

The Witch patted him. 'It was a good plan, Nick,' she said understandingly. 'You'll just had to put off retirement for another fifty years. That's all.'

'Twenty-five, max,' the Princess corrected. 'I have plans, thank you very much.'

The Advisor signed something that made the King chuckle, even if it sounded long-suffering.

'Wait,' the Princess said suddenly, and turned to face the Rabbit, brown eyes intent. 'You're an herbalist?'

'Er, yeah,' the Rabbit said, pulling away from the Prince, who looked a little put out by it until the Rabbit turned to face him and his sister both. 'Been in the town for almost six years now.'

'I knew Jack didn't figure my sickness out on his own!' she said loudly, and punched her brother in the arm. 'Why didn't you say anything, you big jerk?!'

'He was a talking rabbit at the time, would you have believed me?' the Prince said, looking affronted. 'And besides, he asked me not to tell anyone, and -'

'Are you one who healed my granddaughter?' the King interrupted, and the Rabbit fidgeted under his gaze.

'Aye,' he said at last. 'But in me defence, it was actually a simple fix. Yer doctors are terrible.'

The King chuckled. 'Then I can't begrudge you my grandson, if you gave back my granddaughter,' he said. The Rabbit flattened his ears.

'You couldn't, anyway,' the Prince said breezily. 'Where do you think I was all summer?'

The King shook his head. 'So much is clear now,' he said, sounding annoyed about it. 'You are impossible.'

'It's late,' the Witch declared, 'and I don't know about you guys, but I'm exhausted. I'm going home. Bunny?'

'Ye're right,' the Rabbit said reluctantly. He turned to the Prince, and pretended not to notice as the other four filed out of the room. He didn't bother to pretend he wasn't grateful for their thoughtfulness.

'Are ye alright, after that?' he asked, running the thick pad of his thumb over the Prince's cheekbone.

'I'm okay. I knew something was wrong, anyway,' the Prince murmured back. 'You didn't look quite right, and then... everything went hazy. When I could think clearly again, you were - it felt wrong. I was in love with Rabbit. If it had really been you, I think I would have said the same thing.' The Prince shrugged. 'I liked you both, which made me feel really guilty, but I was more attached to Rabbit.'

The Rabbit swallowed the guilt that rose up in answer. 'I'm so sorry.'

'Why didn't you tell me?' The Prince asked, fingers weaving into the Rabbit's. Even with the different count, they fit together better than the Rabbit could have imagined.

'By the time I trusted ye, it was too late,' the Rabbit admitted. 'I couldn't lose ye, and it seemed to me that lying to ye about being two people might've been a bit much. Never thought I might lose ye if I kept lying. This is me fault, that ye almost -'

'What Pitch did isn't your fault,' the Prince said fiercely. He picked up the Rabbit's paws, kissed the knuckles. 'And I was lying, too. Even if I fessed up earlier.'

'I shouldn'tve let it go on so long,' the Rabbit sighed. 'Let's agree that this could have gone better, yeah?'

'That's fair,' the Prince said. 'But - if it makes you feel better, I was in love with both of you.'

'How is that supposed to make me feel better?' the Rabbit huffed.

'I think a part of me knew,' the Prince whispered. 'Of course I was in love with both of you - they were both  _ you _ .'

The sweetness of that put paid to anything else the Rabbit might have said, and he simply stared at the Prince.

'I love ye,' he said after a moment, and the Prince smiled brilliantly.

'I know,' he said back. 'I love you, too.'

'Are you two done being gross?' the Princess called through the door. The Prince sighed.

'Good night, Jack,' the Rabbit said gently, standing to go.

'See you later, Bunny,' the Prince said, fingers catching on the Rabbit's paw.

'Ye know,' the Rabbit mused, 'I think I would like it if ye called me Aster.'

'Why?' the Prince said. 'Isn't that your middle name?'

'Nah, it's me first name,' the Rabbit replied. 'The E. stands for the name I was born with - er, given by the family that took me in. It's awful.'

'Oh,' the Prince said, blinking. 'Damn, I've been trying to figure it out all night.'

'Ye won't,' the Rabbit said confidently. The Prince stood up, walked with him to the door.'Edward.'

'No.'

'Ernest.'

'Definitely not.'

'Eunice.'

'That's a girl's name.'

The Prince screwed up his face. 'Something weird, then,' he said, then snapped his fingers. 'Evergreen.'

The Rabbit began to say no, then thought about it. 'I like it. Evergreen it is.'

The Prince began to laugh, the sound nowhere near mocking, as the Rabbit opened the door. 'Are you ready?' the Witch asked, smiling at them. 

'Yeah,' the Rabbit replied, and looked to the Prince. 'See ye tomorrow?' he asked, uncertain.

The Prince's eyes twinkled. 'Bright and early,' he promised.

'I'll hold ye to that,' the Rabbit grinned, relieved, and let the Witch lead him from the palace.

The ball was long over, the festivities dwindling in the square; the Rabbit and the Witch bid each other good night, then went their separate ways. The walk home was short but cold, even through the coat and clothes over his fur, and when the Rabbit arrived at his cottage, he was glad to see the fire was still alive.

Poking at the embers, stoking the fire to merry, crackling life, he removed his jacket at last, setting it gently aside. The magic had shifted the shape of his clothes with him, at least, but he didn't want to harm them; they were, after all, the finest thing he owned. He took a seat on the bed.

It seemed strange to him, that he could focus on all these little things, that he wasn't panicking. The story he'd been told - the truth of who, of what he was - should have been too much.

Instead, it felt like... Like what he was doing. Coming home, to the right house, in the right town, with the right future ahead of him.

Even if that meant being Fairy King. He'd survive. He wouldn't be alone any more - ever again. Someday, he'd learn more about his mother, about the war, about where he'd come from, but for now... 

He wasn't happy. The Prince wasn't by his side, so at most he could be content. But, oh, he'd never known a contentment so deep.

He froze as the door to the outside opened, and looked up to see the Prince in his doorway.

'It's technically morning?' the Prince offered sheepishly, and the Rabbit snorted, mostly to hide his relief. This was how it was supposed to be.

'Ye did say early,' he sighed. 'Get in here, ye gumby, ye're letting the heat out.'

The Prince came in, smiling now, and the Rabbit shook his head.

'Ye're ridiculous,' he said fondly as the Prince removed his cloak. 'Ye should be up at the castle after a night like tonight.'

'I'd rather be here with you,' the Prince replied, and the Rabbit softened. How could he not? He'd spent too many nights dreaming this had happened - his Prince returned to him, safe in his home, in his arms, where he belonged.

'Come here,' he said, and the Prince approached, taking a seat beside him on the bed. The Rabbit didn't even keep chairs, having little use for them, but then, he'd never thought he'd have the Prince sitting on his bed. He wondered if he might as well renovate - if he'd need to, if the Prince intended to stay.

'I missed you,' the Prince sighed, and laid his hand on the Rabbit's once more. 'It was awful. And now that I'm back - it felt wrong, to let you leave. So I came to you.'

'Are ye planning on spending the night, then?' the Rabbit tried to joke, but it came out a little wobbly. His hope had to be singing in every breath he took - there was no way the Prince couldn't hear it.

'I'd plan on never leaving, if I could,' the Prince replied, looking annoyed about it. 'I'm told that I have to at least go back to the castle daily to run things.'

'Does yer grandfather know ye're here?'

The Prince's smile was sharp around the edges in a way that made the Rabbit's fur prickle. 'What he doesn't know can't send him into a murderous rage. Besides, I'm not in line for the throne anymore - I can be as scandalous as I want, now.' He leaned into the Rabbit's side, under his arm. 'I could even run away with the Fairy King, if I wanted to.'

'Not running away if ye're still in the same town, is it?' the Rabbit asked, heart pounding.

'I'd run away to wherever you were,' the Prince replied. 'Doesn't matter how far.'

The Rabbit was wordless, until the Prince yawned. 'Go on, get into bed,' he said, standing. 'I'll be there in a 'mo.'

'I usually sleep without clothes on,' the Prince said innocently, and the Rabbit choked. 'That's not going to be a problem, is it?'

The Rabbit had to swallow a few times before he could speak again. 'Is - is it a problem?' he asked, forcing himself to look the Prince in the eye.

The Prince tilted his head. 'What do you mean?'

'I'm not human,' the Rabbit said. 'Not anymore. I'm not even sure how this body works, for all that it's mine -'

'That's okay,' the Prince said, catching on. 'It doesn't bother me. You're you, how could it? And the Fae take human lovers all the time, according to the stories - both in changed shape, and in their own.' His smile went sharp again. 'Besides, we can figure your body out together, right?'

A powerful wave of love flooded the Rabbit then, and he smiled back. 'That can be arranged,' he agreed. 'But tonight, sleep. We've had a long night.'

The Prince nodded, satisfied, and they both undressed. Too tired to do much more than glance at the Prince's bare skin, the Rabbit wriggled into the bed, the two of them tangling comfortably as if they'd been doing it all their lives.

'Good night, Aster,' the Prince whispered, and kissed the corner of the Rabbit's mouth. 'I love you.'

'Good night,' the Rabbit replied, voice soft through his return kiss. 'I love ye, too.' As they fell into pleasant dreams, the Rabbit quietly wondered which of the two  _ I love you _ s was more miraculous.

  
  


~100 Years Later~

  
  


'No, ye stop right there.'

Unhappy chittering.

The Rabbit threw his hands into the air. 'Baby Tooth,' he growled.

The bird-girl mimicked the sound three octaves up, and when he reached up for the potions vial she'd nicked, she hovered higher.

'I'll tell Jack ye're giving me trouble,' he warned.

'Not if I told her to do it,' his husband's voice sang behind him, and the Rabbit's ears swivelled around a split second before his body could follow.

The Prince had been gone for months, assisting the Queen in the capitol with some new engineering endeavour (the Rabbit had helped with the last one, digging the state of art sewage system six decades back), and at this point the longing had settled into the Rabbit's bones. He knew his love would come home, but he hated being apart for so long.

His beloved Prince was looking at him, fondly exasperated. 'If you've left your laboratory once since I've been gone, I'll eat your crown, Aster,' he said with the same, brilliant grin as ever.

'Jack, me love, if ye ate me crown ye'd only be doing me a favour,' the Rabbit returned, pointedly not answering the implied question and drinking in the sight of his husband. The Prince had informed him that most wizards chose to look old, thinking it made them look wise. He was happy with functioning knees, thank you very much, and so looked precisely the same as he had on that long ago summer day, young and strong and bright as the sun. 'Ye know I hate the damned thing.'

Later, he would ask how the project had gone (something about indoor plumbing; the Queen was mad, the Rabbit firmly believed). Later, they would talk about their time apart, trade stories and laughter and kisses as tender as first spring shoots.

Right now, the Rabbit wrapped himself around his much-missed, much-loved Prince, and was happy to be held.

**Author's Note:**

> Communication in relationships is key, people, or you end up with a cursed boyfriend. Guaranteed. Every time.


End file.
